Graphic Pics- Wing Amputation Advise?

[Conan]

How are your ladies doing today?

 

[XanderWiFi]

Once a day for cleaning/irrigation is optimal. But as mentioned: regeneration occurs better in a "moist" environment. Not saturated, and not dried. After daily cleaning I would only apply your choice of "moisturizer" as needed for the rest of the day to keep it from drying out.

I only use the 50/25/25 water/peroxide/betadine mix for the initial super cleaning. After that good old soap and water or 75/25 water/betadine for a daily cleaning. I would recommend a daily painting of betadine or chlorhexidine AROUND the wound bed to prevent pathogen migration from surrounding skin.

I think you have the methods perfect. We are in the long game now to see if regeneration successfully occurs or if infection wins. As mentioned before, you are doing fantastic.

Duchess appears to have a deeper wound and your care so far is on point. If possible, I would not use the blue kote has that is more a superficial wound cleaner and primarily CONCEALER to keep chickens from getting henpecked worse. Maybe after it heals a bit with granulation and you return her to the flock.

Keep up the great work. Everything from this point on should be gentle and primarily up to the bird's bodies to do the job.

 

[Raptorchick]

Hey all I actually typed a whole response early this morning, and the internet crashed lol, so heres to trying again!
Raptor is so full of energy, it's almost a two person job cleaning her up, but the sugar seems to be working. Yesterday both her and Duchess got under their gauze wraps real easy, so I'm wrapping a bit more and tighter now, live and learn. Yesterday I used Vetericyn to clean when I ran out of the saline wound cleaner, but wow they didn't like that, I think it hurt. So, I took out the hydrogen peroxide and the vetericyn from the mix, neither seem very helpful. Today was saline wound cleaner, then fifty/fifty betadine/purified water, then coat with neosporin, then sugar on top. Last night Raptor was bored, so I laid down a bunch of puppy pads and let her roam. She then tried to fly up on top of her hospital crate... She wasn't hurt, just surprised, ended up landing on her good wing side xp I'll have to do a chicken physical rehab, and teach her how to hop, before I let her back with the other hens...
I'm more worried about Duchess. Like you said Xander, it's deep, deeper than I thought. And the day before yesterday silly me thought it had sealed shut. It had only scabbed over, yesterday after day 1 of sugar the dirt-scabs came off, really showing the hole. It's hard to see inside without a flashlight, but everything in the hole is white, I don't know what that means? I cleaned her up with wound wash, then betadine/water, then neosporin (all of this also pumped inside the hole just btw, and spread around inside with qtips), and poured sugar on top. Her behaviour is normal, just moving slower from her bandages, she hates them. Today I did gauze pads, then gauze wrap, and then vet-adhesive wrap, with her jacket on top, I really don't think it's coming off.
I'll post pictures below...
Thanks again all advise greatly appreciated !!

 

[Raptorchick]

This is immediately after removing her bandages. Her poor feathers are trying to make a comeback, and now I coat them with sugar xp

Her treat after is mirror/exploring time She's afraid of nothing, that could be bad lol...
Below is after removing Duchess' bandages. Yesterday the right edge and hole edge was black with scab, and they came off...

The hole opened wider, the lighting in the below picture makes it look terrible :/ Is the white stuff tissue or infection? There was no puss, smell, or discharge that came out....

I irrigated it with betadine/water, and with betadine all sloshed inside, she took off her head-cover and flew across the bathroom in one swoop. She didn't like that ...

Drowned and packed with neosporin and sugar. Her little hip is pink, both sides, I know it looks like possible inflammation but her wings are the same color, I think its old roughly handled booboos (from the roo, hes separated now).

Trying out the stockinette, over her gauze and vet wrap. Yesterday I didn't have it around her wings or legs and it came right off lol, maybe this time it will stay

 

[FlyingNunFarm]

Both are looking good! My girl with the hole in her side looked the same. The tissue looked funny but it healed. I sprinkled sugar under the flap and let it go. Try not to pick it up and check. It will eventually stick down and stay.

 

[Tesumph]

I’m so glad Raptor is doing good. I really hope she makes a 100% recovery after all your efforts! Hopefully that blackness will start going away soon.

Ideal granulation tissue is light to hot pink. Generally blackness means necrotic, and light yellow or grey is slough (the noun “slough” is generally that sticky squishy yellow or grey tissue, not to be confused with the verb “to slough” which could refer to large hunks of stiff and black necrotic tissue peeling off). Dark red and quick to bleed isn’t really good either. Eventually all of it needs to come off. In a hospital setting it would be debrided with a scalpel or other methods (maggots!), but in your situation, you just can’t expect a perfect wound recovery. That’s why I think Raptor’s nub should be left alone but moist, even though it doesn’t exactly look ideal, messing with it would probably make things worse right now.

For Duchess, I’m not so sure. I think you need to be a little more aggressive with wound cleaning. If I were you I’d soak the whole thing with a warm betadine and water solution and really scoop/scrape that sticky grey/yellow tissue out, as well as any dirty looking scabs, even if it bleeds a little. It’s looks like it’s festering a little, yknow? Try and keep that wound a dryer than Raptor’s wound. If it starts smelling you might consider antibiotics. But besides that your cleaning routine sounds perfect.

Thank you so much for the updates!

Edit: it really all comes down to gut feelings. Maybe if you did everything perfect they wouldn’t get better anyway, and maybe if you did nothing they would heal just fine. I can only say what I would do in a situation and hope I’m being helpful lol.

 

[XanderWiFi]

That yellow tissue may very well be a fatty layer also. Keep cleaning it and applying a barrier with clean cover and her body will do the rest. It's a nasty wound, but easily survivable for sure.

 

[Kiki]

Check this out!
#1

 

[Raptorchick]

Thank you Kikis !!
These poor girls, I wish I knew all this about wound care before any of this had happened :/ I've been looking up research on sugar vs honey vs sugar/honey dressings for wounds, it all points to the honey. I have medical honey dressings and medihoney gel arriving tomorrow, mostly to get Raptors wing into a healing-state. I'll post pictures tomorrow

 

[Raptorchick]

Whoamygosh... so, pictures today! Um, day 3 with neosporin/sugar I think. Both girls had lifted scabby bits, I wetted everything down with wound wash and started removing the lifted parts, and 90% of the scab came off on both girls... Raptor has me freaked out the most, idk if this is good or bad or just mind blowing?? Never had to deal with wounds before so wow this is all new...
I held Duchess' wing back with stockinette, needed two hands today.

The white stuff left wasn't coming off, I thoroughly cleaned in there with betadine/water soaked qtips and flushed it, then covered/packed everything with neosporin and then sugar, then sterile gauze and vet wrap and stockinette.
Raptors looks SO much better without all the black, but I'm still so surprised that all that stuff came off together... the stump-end actually just fell off when she shook her wings to dry, all one piece! Crazy...

After I smothered with neosporin and sugar, then gauze wrapped, then vet wrapped.
I can't believe this just happened ! Good or bad please let me know ......