Feral cat attacked baby chick 🐤

[ocgabs]

Hi all, a feral cat attacked my 2 weeks old chicks while on the garden and got one. I chased the cat as fast as I could. The injured chick has the crop punctured in two places. Tinny holes from the cat fangs. I am in a very rural area but I did take him to the agro-shop. Only a young vet assistant was available and he said it could survive. Wounds should cure by its own prescribed ample spectra antibiotic with paracetamol (see picture) disolver on water. The problem is that the crop was quite full when the attack happened and it's not emptying after 1 day. Chicken was ok the day of the attack still showing normal energy and sicking human company but not eating, only drinking. Now on the second day she ate a bit but is now very quiet. I am worried about its crop not emptying, based on what I read here I gave her 1 ml of olive oil mixed with warm water and massaged its crop. Is there a video or pictures of how to do this right? it did soften and perhaps decreased a bit in size, but still not empty. I can't massage a lot because of the injuries... I wonder what else I can do for my tinny chick. It will be miracle if it heals. I will very much appreciate your recommendations!

 

[Eggcessive]

It would be hard to get an empty crop on a two week old if she is eating around the clock. Chicks tend to have food in crops all the time, but if she goes for 4-5 hours without eating or drinking, the crop may be smaller. Is she pooping? Does she have a light on in her brooder? Can you mix some feed with a lot of water and add a bit of raw egg?

There is paracetamol (acetominphen, tylenol) in the medicine you have. Chickens should not get that. I would try to disinfect the wound twice a day to prevent infection. I hope that your chick lives.

 

[ocgabs]

Hi thanks for your comments. She poops very little, more of a normal one after the oil and massage. Ate a little bit more afterward. Gave her 0.5ml more of oil and water and put food away for the night. I saw your comment too late to try soft food. Hopefully tomorrow there will be a chance for this. I only have one warm brooder so I can't isolate her...

What would be the best thing to disinfect?

Why not paracetamol? I found this scientific article which concludes its fine... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2997462/

But I am not trying to create controversy, just know little about meds and chickens. Which medicine would you recommend? Say components, I am in latinamerica.

I have further read here that some people seal the crop with superglue, perhaps I should try this?!?!

Thanks a lot and hopefully tomorrow we will continue the treatments.

 

[coach723]

In high enough doses the paracetamol can cause liver/kidney toxicity. The the label saying 5%, I don't know what the dose actually is.
Is the crop leaking, is there food or water coming out around the area? If not, then I would not glue it. Small wounds and punctures of the crop, that are high enough on the crop may heal themselves. If it's leaking, then different story. When repairing a crop you have to close the crop and the skin over it separately, two different layers, so that they are not all attached together. More difficult on such a small chick.
Cat bites can cause bacterial infection that is particularly deadly to birds (pasturella multocida), so personally I would treat with an antibiotic. I don't know what you can get there, amoxicillin would be good to use and is well tolerated. The meds you have would be good at the correct dosing (assuming the paracetamol dose is very low in it), but the label pictured doesn't give enough info to know.
It's also possible that the chick has other internal injuries that are not obvious. Being so small, a cat bite that was hard enough to cause punctures could have done more damage.

 

[ocgabs]

Hi thanks for your answer. The chick still with us today acting more normal everyday. Well when I just put them out into the garden she behaves normal for a short period eats, drinks then stops and moves much less while the others never stop. We repeat this going outside routine 2 or 3 times a day and this chick repeats the normal behavior, eating, etc for a few minutes then slows down. I guess it's in pain or exhausted. The total amount of medicine in the package is 10g and the dose is 2g for 1 liter of water, from that I give this chick some 2 ml per day plus what she drinks on its own... So 5% paracetamol should be quite low... At the farm I have other chicken meds. We will go there today and I could swap to antibiotic only. Today I stop this chick from eating too much dry food (pellets and cracked corn) and fed her with egg yolk. The crop does lick the liquids a bit, quite high on the right side. Could you please explain the process of gluing? And which glue should be used? Treating the two layers separately sounds difficult. It is a very small hole <5 mm. When I took it to the agro-shop and they said it could survive, I told him but it looks like the food will come out through the hole, he say, yes and it will, but she can heal...

 

[coach723]

If it's very small, I would give it some time to see if it will close up on it's own. Maybe feed the chick smaller amounts more often to keep it from filling so full, stretching and leaking. If not, you will likely need to make the skin opening larger to get to the crop. Then you would hold/pinch the crop together while gluing to close the hole. Once completely set up, and sure it's closed, flush out the area under the skin where the leaking has occured, make sure there is not any feed or anything in there, then do the same with the skin, making sure to pinch it out so it doesn't adhere to the crop below. I would use a medical type superglue if you can get it, a gel type is better so it will stay where you put it and not drip where you don't. The antibiotic will help prevent infection from any bacteria from the leaking crop also. If there is 1.g of active medication (it appears there is 100g of non-active ingredients?) then 12.5% of the main ingredient is .125g of that, seems pretty low to me, but I'm not sure. I think you would be better off giving a straight antibiotic where you can be more sure of the dosing, and give it directly rather than mixed in water so you know it gets the whole dose.