Chicken Badly Injured by Dog

[pennyJo1960]

good idea then if she will be in garage might want to give he a bit of sugar water tonight
help her get through

 

[ShanasCastle]

Mix a teaspoon of salt with a gallon of water, put it in an old mister-type cleaning bottle (thoroughly washed) and gently spray her back to clean off the dirt and blood. Cut short some of the feathers around the wound to remove a source of contamination. Do you have triple-antibiotic ointment in a first-aid kit? You want to keep that wound moist.

If she doesn't have triple antibiotic salve, would it he safe to use honry? It's great for wounds on people, dogs, cats, and horses that I know of. Just thinking it's something we usually have on hand.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi, Today was very tragic because a neighborhood dog attacked and killed one of our young silkies and also badly injured one of our hens. The injury is pretty deep (you can see a bone exposed under/near her neck area) and there’s muscle and tissue exposed. We don’t have any antibiotics or ointments on hand to treat her topically with but we did rinse the wound well with saline and placed gauze in the deeper wound and also wrapped her with gauze in the exposed areas to try and prevent infection until we can get Blu-kote or any supplies tomorrow morning. We separated her into our garage inside a cage with towel bedding with food and water to prevent the other hens from messing with her. We’re not sure that she’ll survive this bad/deep of a wound but we’re trying to help her as much as we can. I’ll insert a picture that i took of the wound before treating it and if I get any other pictures I’ll insert those as well but I only have one as of now. Help?)):

Thanks for the advice. We can’t do much else tonight because it’s really late, but My mother is a nurse and she had gauze and saline on hand so we cleaned it well with saline and just wrapped her well with gauze just to help until morning when she can pick up antibiotics, but we are feeling discouraged because of the depth of the wound, we hope she can survive this)): and I’m from the southern part of the united states, near Alabama.

Agreed, don't pack or wrap the wounds with gauze or any other type of covering.

I would use triple antibiotic ointment or Vetericyn in the wounds instead of Blu Kote simply because the bluing makes it hard to evaluate deep wounds.

I would also trim away the feathers as suggested earlier, this keep the wound cleaner and makes it easier to treat.

You mention there is bone exposed? If you have vet care, that is best, but you will need to watch her closely for signs of infection. What antibiotics do you plan on using?

Hydration is very important. Sugar water is good. You can also give gatorade or pedialyte for the first 8 hours, then switch to poultry vitamins for a couple of days. Don't worry about trying to get food into her, she needs water and warmth.

 

[pennyJo1960]

doing the saline and Neosporin tomorrow to put on it the saline is great

 

[Horsebackgurl98]

Hang in there! This is my 6month old girl pecked to the skull by some of the meaner year olds. First picture is the day I found her this way the second picture is 2 weeks post injury! Good luck! We just flushed it with water used vetricin and SSD cream (Neospirin works too!) And cleaned it out real well every day with a q tip. (I work with exotic vets and they said as long as no infection develops it will second intention heal which is from the inside out.) Chickens are very good at growing back skin! Don't give up keep us posted.

 

[micstrachan]

Poor girl. You have received good advice. Warmth and fluids are key. Try to stay calm around her. Stress can kill. We have seen birds pull through these types of injuries. Hang in there!

 

[MadelynLovesChickens]

This morning there wasn’t much change, we found some blue kote and also hen healer (not sure what that is)? My parents are going to a tractor supply store to see what antibiotics they have available and see if they can give any advice. We found an egg in the cage this morning (which will probably be her last for a while) and there was blood in her droppings, so we’re not sure what that means, but maybe the treatments we found/are getting will help.

 

[pennyJo1960]

please just get the neosporin and do not bandage again alright and nutri drench

 

[Wyorp Rock]

This morning there wasn’t much change, we found some blue kote and also hen healer (not sure what that is)? My parents are going to a tractor supply store to see what antibiotics they have available and see if they can give any advice. We found an egg in the cage this morning (which will probably be her last for a while) and there was blood in her droppings, so we’re not sure what that means, but maybe the treatments we found/are getting will help.

Is she drinking?

Can you post some updated photos of her wounds after you clean them and trim up the feathers?

Blood in the droppings probably means internal injuries/trauma. If you have photos of the poop, that would be good too.

 

[MissChick@dee]

Ouch! Salt in a wound I would think that would burn/hurt like crazy. I like betadine it’s readily available and does a good job in cleaning wounds. I like the spray bottle too. It has just enough force in the spray to flush out dibries. Look for puncher holes too since it was a dog. I use a hook nose syringe to flush those.