Help! Hen with large growth on ear!

[purpletree23]

You can't 'poke' it. It has to be cut open. Just a tiny slit so you can get in there and dig the infection out. Most feed stores sell scalpels or you can use an exacto knife from a craft store. Just boil the exacto if you can't get a sterile scalpal.

My other post said that chicken infection is solid not runny like human infection.

Try a vet or maybe even put her down. It must be painful especially if she is going nuts and pecking at her feathers.

 

[purpletree23]

How is she?

 

[fosterfarm]

Thanks for asking. We've had her in the house for the past week, and she was doing great, very spunky, even trying to jump up to perch on our heads unexpectedly in the evening! LOL

We were unable to find any vets in the area that will look at a chicken, which is extremely frustrating. We also were unable to find injectable pennicillin for poultry. She's lovely, so we don't want to put her down. She doesn't seem to be feeling well today. She found a perch she likes, and has basically not moved from it since yesterday afternoon. She is not interested in eating or drinking, has done very little of it when we set her in front of her food and water. She was quite a piggy until today. She no longer protests when we pick her up and has been sleeping a lot (I know that's not a good sign). Also, in the last 5 hours or so, she has poohed a couple of times and it is runny, with goopy white stuff in it. This change has just happened, so we don't know what's going on. The growth is still on her ear and it is very hard and black, as you can see in the picture. She scratches at it once in a while, and until today, she would open her mouth every once in a while like she was trying to pop her ears.

Do you think her days are numbered? We are worried that they are. We've become very attached, as one would, having a chicken in your house for a week!

She doesn't appear to be in pain, she's just tired. She also stopped picking at her feathers that first night, we later realized she was cleaning them, not pulling them out, and I think she was ticked at us for washing her feathers with water, as they had blood on them when we brought her in.

Thank for all your help everyone!

 

[Turner]

Where do you live? That lesion looks more like a tumor to me but I am not a vet. I would call your closest college that has a vet school - there is always a Professor that is a vet and deals with Poultry. You might get some answers and treatment that way! Good Luck

 

[fosterfarm]

We live in Owen Sound, Ontario. There are farm vets near here that only seem to deal with big animals. They will talk to us on the phone, but that only helps so much, and they do not seem interested in the slightest. Thanks for the suggestion though. I went to school at the U of Guelph, and I hadn't thought to call there! I'll try Monday.