bleeding from a missing claw

[leannajones]

hi all,

we have had chickens for 3 days and already some problems! in the first night we lost a chicken to a stoat. at the same time, another chicken lost one of her back claws. (we have now reinforced the coop, so no more stoat attacks). it seemed to scab over but now 2 days later she is bleeding again from the same place.

following their ordeal the chickens are much more nervous than when they arrived. we tried to catch the bleeding one to put antiseptic and cornflour on it (we were told that cornflour clots the blood and we did this with the original injury) but they do not trust us and we stopped after feeling it was stressing them out too much trying to catch her.

is it more important to catch her and tend to the wound, or leave her and hope that it stops bleeding and doesn't get infected?

my partner feels that she is losing too much blood, whereas to me it doesn't look like a worrying amount. how much is too much bleeding?

we are thinking of trying to catch her again at dusk when she will be sleepier.

many thanks for your advice.

 

[Judy]

When the chicken isn't tame, it's easiest to wait til after dark and pick them up off the roost. They are sleepy and resist less.

 

[leannajones]

we have just been out in the dusk and picked her out of the roost, it was easy to get her like you said. we bathed her foot in salt water and then dabbed it with witch hazel. then we put cornflour on it. it seems like she hasn't actually lost her claw but has some kind of cut between the claw and her toe. she tolerated all this for a while but then started getting cross. we then put her in a box lined with straw with the intention of keeping her separated for the night but she seemed really distressed about this and was flapping and stomping around. after 5 mins she hadn't settled down so we let her back into the coop with her buddy.

the problem is now me and my partner strongly disagree on what to do next.

what my partner thinks: she lost a significant amount of blood when the wound re-opened, it's made worse by her perching and so it would be better to have her in the flat box with straw. she seemed in pain because she appeared to be walking more slowly than the other chicken. we need to keep tending to the wound to make sure it is disinfected. we need to keep her in the coop and not let her into the run tomorrow as in the run she will be exposed to mud and damp.

what i think: the scab came off and there was some blood - not that much. she is not limping and we've had several eggs out of the two chickens and they look bright etc so i don't think she's in much pain. handling her has stressed both chickens out a lot and they are becoming less tame by the day as a result. i am much more worried about how stress will affect her compared to this cut. i don't want to handle her again unless something gets worse. i don't think spending the day in the run in the pasture (with free access to the coop) will harm her - despite a bit of mud and rain - i expect that allowing her to have a normal day is probably better than being shut away indoors.

neither of us have kept chickens before so could anyone help us out and suggest if either or neither of us have the right idea!

thanks, leanna

 

[Squizz]

Hi Leanna

I found your post following a search as one of my girls seems to have lost her back claw. It looks as if you posted a while back, how did you get on? She has changed from a laying hen to not and I wondered if this was making her unhappy or if she had eggs in her system before we bought her and she's still settling in.

I'm new here and have had my girls a fortnight on Tuesday. As with yours, my sick girl is feeding and drinking ok I only really noticed because she seemed to be walking with a slight limp.

Many thanks if you can spare the time to reply,
Denise