Bleeding wing tip due to feather trimming

[JeanieCoop]

Okay...we read and read about cutting wing feathers and thought we were being careful. But my husband cut the feathers that were not supposed to be cut, the ones with the blood vessels in them. Our white cochin is bleeding in about 3 different places. I have sterilized with hydrogen peroxide and have tried putting a "corn starch cast" on the wing tip but she keeps pecking it off and bleeding returns.

We need help and advice on how to properly care for her wing...please!!!

Right now I have fashioned a t-shirt barrier to keep her from pecking the the wing, and we have had to separate her from the other girls. We all feel so bad.

 

[cafarmgirl]

I am having a hard time seeing in that picture what exactly is going on. Was the wing tip itself cut into? If it was just blood feathers that were cut you generally have to pull them out to stop the bleeding otherwise they tend to just keep dripping. If the wing itself has been cut flush it well with water or saline and then coat it with neosporin. If the wing was cut I'm sure it's painful to her so she will pick at it. You might have to put some gauze on it and then wrap the wing with Vet Wrap for a few days to let it heal up. You will also want to keep her away from the others, they will see that and go after it.

In the future if you want to clip wings just cut the longest of the flight feathers by about half their lenght, after you check for blood feathers. That is usually enough to put a stop to flying over fences etc. without danger of harming the wing itself.

 

[JeanieCoop]

Dear cafarmgirl;

My main concern is infection. If anyone can share with me what I might look for in the next 36 hours. We plan on having our vet look at her wing tip on Tuesday morning.

I do believe we have nipped into bone. I did research online and found plucking the blood feather as a course of treatment. I considered doing that procedure, but with further examination, I believe I am closer to bone. We have stopped her bleeding, but she was pecking and preening the wound area, which of course caused more bleeding. We stopped the subsequent bleeding and have now applied liquid bandage to the wound followed with a gauze "sleeve" that fits over her wing tip- but I didn't put neosporin on it. I have wrapped the "sleeve" on the wing with a gauze-type medical wrap (not Vetrap, because we don't have any in the house) in a figure 8 pattern (per avianmedicine.net diagrams). This binds the wing and keeps her from flapping it. I also put the t-shirt covering on to keep her from pecking at her dressing. (I cut a child's t-shirt to size, her head comes through the sleeve and I safety pinned the fabric to keep the shirt on her). She is not real happy right now

, makes soft cooing noises. She has been inside our home since 5:00pm. She still pecks at food and will take water from a syringe, she is not drinking eagerly by herself, probably from discomfort and not being able to be her own chicken! At 8:45pm she is quietly sleeping.

I would appreciate any further advice on our course of action...would anyone do anything different?

cafarmgirl...Thank you so much for your reply, I do appreciate it.

 

[JeanieCoop]

Just an update...
I took my white cochin to the vet on Tuesday and received a passing grade on my caring and bandaging of the wound. The vet told me he did not see injury to blood feathers, that the bleeding was more from a flesh wound from the scissors. He was very optimistic about her healing without any infection and told me to keep the wing wrapped for another 6 days (to keep her from pecking open her wound), keep her separated to avoid pecking and harassing from the other chickens. He also put her on 7 days of Clavomax antibiotic (as a precaution) and told me to make sure we don't eat any of her eggs for 30 days. She hasn't started laying yet, but she will be any day, I'm sure. He also was responsible in communicating the proper cutting of wings.

I have been bringing her inside the house to sleep at night, then I take her outside in the morning for a bit. After a while I check in on her to make sure the bandage is still on (wrapped with vet rap). Since she will start laying eggs any day I am going to have to keep her separated from the other girls unless I am with her and watching. The difficult part will be the 30 days of separating her so we don't eat her eggs.

I am glad we didn't get any blood feathers...but sad for what she has to go through because of careless wing cutting (my husband's fault, grrrr). So, I hope this might be helpful for any one out there that might be going through the same thing, or hopefully this will encourage people to be very careful in wing feather cutting.

 

[TurkenLover17]

Put Blue-Kote on it, that will seal the wound and help heal it.