Chicks leg FILLETED like a fish!!!~UPDATE~

[pinkchick]

Found one of my 3 week olds yesterday afternoon with her left leg filleted like a fish! NASTY!!!!!!!!!!!!

No blood! (ANYWHERE or on ANYTHING!!!!) NOTHING in the brooder that she could have been hurt on, no other chicks affected........did I mention NO BLOOD ANYWHERE????? Crazy!

Very clean wound....just the skin......no meat.......from the hip to the knee right down the front of her leg! No blood!!!!! I know I'm stuck on that but it seems very weird to me that there was NO BLOOD.
She walks fine, she is eating and drinking, her foot is slightly swollen down to the ankle, it is not hot or feverish and as far as wounds go it looks well like....oh, you know just EEEEEEeeeeeWWWWW!

I doctored her and dressed the wound to the best of my ability and I brought her into the house where I could watch her. I got up and checked on her this morning and she is still doing fine.......her wound still looks clean and appears to be scabbing from the top to towards the bottom. I hope she makes it through this. Just boggles me as to how it happened.
Anyway.....I guess I just needed to share.

Thanks!

 

[ADRIANNA]

wow, that's weird. NO BLOOD

hmmmmm.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Sounds like a scrape because they don't normally bleed but turn red. Is there anything they can get their legs caught in?

 

[pinkchick]

No, nothing they can get caught in. Oh it is more than a scrap. It's filleted. I am going to move the rest of the chicks to the bigger brooder today so they can go outside, while they are out I am going to clean the smaller brooder for the next batch of chicks so I will be going through it with a fine tooth comb, but going through it yesterday I couldn't find a thing.
Thanks..I'll update later should I find a clue.

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

How about a picture? I can imagine a "fillet" injury involving my blood.

 

[pinkchick]

The last couple days with this chick have been bad. Her foot had swelled up beyond recognition and developed a slight fever, the wound started to take on an angry appearance but never a smell. She stopped walking 2 days ago, wasn't interested in eating or drinking. I had to give her water by beak, just didn't think she was going to make it. Cried about it last night on my way to bed. Confused......didn't find anything in the brooder that she could have been hurt on.
Woke up to a nice surprise this morning.

She is walking around, eating and drinking and her foot is almost normal in size!!!!!!!
The swelling is very slight, the wound up her leg is nice and pinkish....doesn't even resemble last night. It's also starting to close.

 

[CMV]

Piece of wire? I laid my hand open with a piece of wire that had a burr on it while lacing up panels of hardware cloth. I never even saw it, even after I knew it was there. Any metal in the brooder? Metal burrs are pretty much invisible, but do a heck of a job on skin.
Glad to hear your little one is doing better.

 

[pinkchick]

There is chicken wire over the window in the brooder so they can't fly out but I framed it in like a picture frame so all of the wire is covered. They can't even make it up to the window, I just covered it as a precaution.
Many, many batches of chicks have gone in and out of this brooder without a hitch or injury. Who knows......I am just glad she is doing okay.

Thanks!

 

[ruth]

What type of feeder do you use? I was using a long metal feeder, the kind with the holes in it until I had a little duckling cut its beak completely off. At first I couldn't figure out what happened to the poor little guy (I had to put him down, he had no beak left at all, top or bottom.) Then the next day another duckling had cut half of its top beak off (he is still alive and well and the biggest of the freeranging bunch now.) That's when I realized the only thing it could have been was the metal feeder. Sure enough, after feeling inside the rounded slots, which are smooth on outside, I could feel the sharp edges on the inside. The chicks in the same brooder didn't have a problem with the inside edge being sharp becuause they peck at the food and have a different type of beak. But the ducks, with their always wet beaks/bills which are also larger, were scraping them on the inside edge of the holes in the feeder.

I also had a batch of chicks a few weeks old and they were aggressively going at the food and one ended up with a scraped head and one a scraped neck. Needless to say, I don't use those feeders anymore and caution everyone against them.

If you use that type of feeder, the chick could have stepped in the feeder and drug its leg on the side.