Chicken bitten by dog

[Ken The Hen]

A week or so ago one of my hens was bitten by a dog, the skin was torn from her 'arm pit' down to her leg. I applied the best first aid I knew at the time and she has healed reasonably well, however she has developed a large abscess under her right leg, not only does this smell bad but it also effects her walking. I have read about lancing it and removing the nasty stuff, is this the best approach? If I leave it as it is will I do more harm than good?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Welcome to BYC.

Can you post some photos of the abscessed leg?

 

[Ken The Hen]

 

[Ken The Hen]

The first image is of the open end of the abscess, the only part of the wound that has not healed. The second is of the size and location of the abscess. I fed her some boiled egg today as she is very thin (I have had her for a month and wasn't in the best condition to start with) she seemed to enjoy that, any advice will be greatly appreciated!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Most likely you need to open and drain the abscess, the pus will be a hard cheesy substance. Clean it out really well. Flush with betadine or chlorhexidine and apply some plain neosporin, vetericyn or something similar.

Since she is weak and not in the best condition, you may want to consider an antibiotic as well. If you have a vet that can prescribe you one that would be good. If not, you can use procaine Penicillin G 1/4cc daily in breast muscle 1/4" deep, alternate sides daily.

As far as her food, the hard boiled egg is good. You can also try wetting a little bit of her normal feed and adding it to the egg. A higher protein diet will be beneficial, so egg, tuna, salmon, mackerel or meat will work. If she is not laying eggs at this time you can also give her chick starter if you have some.

Once you finish any antibiotic treatment, offer her some poultry vitamins like Poultry Nutri-Drench for a few days.

Keep us posted on her progress.

 

[Ken The Hen]

Great! Thank you for your help once I have opened and cleaned the abscess do I then leave it open or do I place a few stitches? Will I need any sort of anesthetic?
I am unsure if the products you mention are available to me as I live in Australia but I will ask my local far supplyer. Perhaps betadine and peroxide will work?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

No anesthetic.
Use betadine it is less harsh, peroxide is ok for one time use, but if you have the betadine that would be best.
I would leave the wound open to let it breathe you can apply something like plain neosporin (antibiotic ointment) to the wound after you have cleaned it out.

If you can't get any antibiotics, just feed her well like you have been doing. She may start to feel much better once you get the pus out and not need any.

 

[Ken The Hen]

Excellent! I will do as you advise, I will keep you posted thank you!

 

[Ken The Hen]

Are chlorhexidine hydrochlide,cetrimide, hydroxybenzoates and phenoxyethanol ok for use on chickens? Neosporin is unavailable to me but I have Savlon which contains all of the above ingredients.

 

[cheep82]

We had this same sort of issue recently but it was her wing. Our dog is fine but somehow another dog was in our yard?! Anyway the poor girl had a large wound and compound break at the wing joint. I cleaned it with betadine and by next morning we were off to the vet as it was already infected. We now have a recovering chicken, 1 wing gone but it wasn't without dramas. She also got pneumonia a week after.
I work in veterinary microbiology and am always more comfortable getting antibiotics from our vet as we can discuss pros and cons between us. We used baytril (enrofloxacin) as anything else would need to be ordered in and we wanted automatic coverage. Good luck with your girl. They're amazingly resilient and strong birds!