Black toe, wounded knee!

[Cryss]

Warning, long description of problem and treatments to this point.
Also Warning, photos are gross. Not great photos but my subject doesn’t care for cameras.

I am so upset with myself! I know chickens don’t let on when they aren’t feeling well. I catch things by paying attention. Bumblefoot, water belly, prolapsed vent, frostbite prevention , I’ve caught and successfully treated. So how in the H 3 double toothpicks did I miss this mess on my handsome boy! I love him so much! He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He lets me love on him and tolerates me smearing his comb and wattle with a mix of Vaseline and coconut oil on frigid nights. So how did I not see this!!
Two days ago I was watching him politely court the ladies one afternoon and noticed a swollen toe. My thought was bumble foot. I had hubby hold him while I investigated cuz Albert is a big boy! Not bumblefoot! his toe tip is black and hard. Necrotic. Also noticed in the front of his knee he had dried blood and inflammation and swelling around the area. I soaked toe under running warm water, had to skip the Epsom salts soaks because he wasn’t having it. He almost seemed to relax and enjoy the running water. The black was pulling away from the flesh and I see what is probably bone. I trimmed away the lose bits to be able to look for infection in the flesh. It’s very swollen and inflamed but seemed clear. It bled a bit but not much. I cleaned it again and drenched it in a chamomile tincture. I applied PRID in case anything needs drawing out, dressed it with sterile gauze held in place with vetwrap.
Then I addressed the knee. I applied warm soak with paper towel removing the dried blood. There was no bleeding and I could see a tiny spot that looked to be healing. The surrounding area bothered me more than the wound since there is and has been no bleeding. I gave it the same treatment. I separated him from the flock overnight and for a few hours the next morning. Because the Dressings were holding well I saw no reason to keep him separate and I let him back in with the flock that afternoon. That night we cleaned it all again. Toe doused with Calendula tincture, PRID applied and dressed. Knee doused the same, Silverquine gel applied and dressed and wrapped. I prepared a capsule with oregano and popped it in his beak.
Tonight I took photos after washing the areas. After cleansing I applied Silverquine gell to the toe and dressed and wrapped. As for the knee, Because the wrappings made it so hard for Albert to walk, like a cast keeping it straight, and because there has never been bleeding, I took him outside and sprayed with bluekote. Gave another oregano pill. Put him to bed with the flock.

I read a comment by @azygous responding to a similar situation. azygous told the OP it was frostbite and to leave the toe alone. It would fall off naturally as opposed to cutting the to off as it would be less painful to the bird. I’m pretty sure this is the same situation but now wonder if removing some of the necrosis was a bad move? I think now I’ll need to keep the toe covered to keep dirt and germs out.
Have I made any serious mistakes here? What advice does anyone have going forward? I love this boy to pieces. He got me over my fear of roosters because I thought all of them were mean. My heart is broken that he has to go through this because I missed something.

 

[azygous]

The toe is in the process of auto-amputating. There is nothing you need to do. His immune system has it under control. After the toe tip fallls off, the swelling should go down in a few weeks.

The "knee" injury will require some care, though. Quite possibly, the sore toe has prevented him from being agile enough to access his night perch and he's missed a few times, scraping the leg on the perch.

He will require a low perch until he's finished healing, for starters, to prevent further injury.

To treat the leg, use a series of hot compresses, not hot enough to burn, but warm as you can get. You can try Betadine or Blue-kote to prevent infection. You can also use hydrocortisone cream to help reduce swelling, pain, and inflammation.

 

[azygous]

Stop beating yourself up over this. You can't follow all your chickens around 24/7. I feel the exact same way about my two roosters, and I've been treating one for seven months with a similar leg injury. I didn't notice it either until it was infected.

Leave the toe alone. The swelling behind the toe tip is walling off the healthy part of the talon from any possible infection from circulating into the rest of his body. The first time I had a chicken with this issue, it was absolutely fascinating watching and admiring the process. Chickens have been evolving on the planet much longer than we humans, and this is a cool feature their bodies have to enable survival of their species.

 

[Cryss]

Stop beating yourself up over this. You can't follow all your chickens around 24/7. I feel the exact same way about my two roosters, and I've been treating one for seven months with a similar leg injury. I didn't notice it either until it was infected.

Leave the toe alone. The swelling behind the toe tip is walling off the healthy part of the talon from any possible infection from circulating into the rest of his body. The first time I had a chicken with this issue, it was absolutely fascinating watching and admiring the process. Chickens have been evolving on the planet much longer than we humans, and this is a cool feature their bodies have to enable survival of their species.

Thank you so much! Yes I agree. This process is amazing! And thank you for sharing your own experience with this condition. It kinda makes me feel a bit better. He’s just such a sweetheart I feel bad.
To make sure I understand, should I not put a dressing over the toe? I was concerned the bit of bleeding means there’s an open area and I worried about germs.
As for his roost, I had put him on the lower roost. When I came back five minutes later he was back on his kingly high roost. To prevent this I’d have to cage him at night. I guess that’s an idea.

 

[Cryss]

@azygous
I did take your advice to allow the toe tip to fall off naturally. A problem did arise in that the hens started pecking it causing a lot of bleeding which naturally resulted in them pecking all the more. I dressed it to protect it from them. It finally fell off. The area still seemed too exposed, bone visible, so I rebandaged to hopefully give it time to grow a cover. I wasn’t too concerned about it holding the heat because it was winter and spring. The plan was to take it off when it got warm. However, he beat me to it. It wore off and he was able to pull it the rest of the way. The problem is somebody’s picking at it again and he is bloody. I have re-wrapped it. How do I prevent them from picking on it. The first time I caught them picking at it blue coat did not help which is why I bandaged it. I know they release a lot of heat from their feet and legs, so I really hate to keep bandaging. But I will if I need to. I’m just looking for any alternative suggestions. Since you’ve had experience with toes falling off I was hoping that you had experienced this also. How do you prevent the flock from attacking the toe?

 

[azygous]

You isolate the patient until he heals but isolated in direct proximity to the flock so they don't get the idea he's an outside after it's all over.

 

[Cryss]

You isolate the patient until he heals but isolated in direct proximity to the flock so they don't get the idea he's an outside after it's all over.

I’ll have to wait a bit to isolate in proximity Currently Peaches is raising her brood of less than a week old chicks in there. He’ll be next. Meanwhile his toe is dressed so the flock can’t get at it.

 

[Cryss]

@azygous
Just a point. I have 2 roosters. They were hatchmates and get along fine. Occasional feather snatching as they pass each other but never any blood. So, if I separate Albert, the alpha rooster, using see no touch proximity , will there be a problem when I reintroduce Albert? He’s a big boy. His buddy is a bantam.
Thank you for sharing all of your experience.

 

[azygous]

If the two are buddies, try keeping them together for companionship. Roosters are far less likely to peck wounds than hens are.

 

[Cryss]

You isolate the patient until he heals but isolated in direct proximity to the flock so they don't get the idea he's an outside after it's all over.

Well it seems I won’t need to isolate Albert after all!
I’ve been keeping his toe wrapped with vetrap and a dressing. Every time he pulls it off or it wears off at some point we find him bleeding because the hens decide it looks tasty. Never got a chance to actually heal. So now about the first of the month I found him sans bandage and bleeding. I decided to try some of my herbal concoctions. I made a poultice of comfrey and yarrow, and applied it directly to the wound, covered with dressing and wrapped in vetrap. Two days later, he’s ripped it off. It didn’t, look quite as bad but still raw. This time I applied a dressing soaked in comfrey tincture, and wrapped it in vetrap, of course. Again last night I saw he had pulled it off but it was still attached where I had secured it around the ankle. I brought him in to remove the dangling dressing and assess the situation. Low and behold, there’s no rawness. Other than a bit of fluff from the dressing stuck to the tip of the toe he looks well healed. I know comfrey is a wonderful healing herb. It’s known for healing, broken bones. I’ve never really had to use it for anything but I keep it on hand. How wonderful to have tested it out and seeing such great results! It looks funky as all git-outs but so far seems good to go. It certainly hasn’t stopped him! He still on his job every day.