Broken toe

[geojane42]

One of my 6 week old Polish chicks has a broken toe about 1/8th of an inch above her toenail. It wasn't severed through so I took her to the vet yesterday to see what he thought but I'm pretty sure this was his first chicken patient so he really wasn't sure. We decided to splint it as best we could and tape it up in case it would re-attach itself. It didn't even really seem to be bothering her yesterday. She was happily eating cat grass at the vet while he examined it and fell asleep in my chest on the way home. But this morning she's limping pretty badly so I'm thinking that it probably has to come off. Does anyone have any experience with this? I'm thinking I could probably just do it myself if I sterilize the dog nail clippers and dip it in Styptic powder to stop the bleeding. Any thoughts?

 

[geojane42]

I did a bit of googling on bird first aid and decided to try something new before lopping it off. Would have been much easier with two pairs of hands but that wasn't an option so I wrapped her in a dish towel and did it myself. I made a rounded pad of gauze which I put under all 3 of her front pointing toes then wrapped it with more gauze to immobilize it and finished it with medical tape. I cut one strip up the middle and used that to attach the whole shebang to her leg to hold it in place. Hopefully the support and padding will enable her to get around on it with less pain.