Hen badly injured

[MaiBee]

She's not going to die, especially with the excellent care you're giving her. Here's a tip I discovered a couple years ago when my rooster scalped a hen who was resisting his advances. Leave that flap of skin in place.

It will act as a skin graft and the wound will heal much faster. Keep up what you're doing to keep the wound clean. You really only need to do it twice a day for this first week. Then once a day from the second week until the wound completely heals. Never, never, never let the wound dry out. Keep Neosporin on it at all times.

Then use the Neosporin to "glue" that hanging flap of skin over as much of the wound as it can cover. I first squirt the ointment on the wound, then lay the flap down, and then squirt more Neosporin over the top of the flap and the rest of the wound. Do this each time you clean the wound.

Before long, the flap will stay firmly in place. That indicates it's grafting itself to the wound, and from then on, new skin will grow outward from the graft and inward from the edges of the wound.

And it will protect the wound bed...even if the skin doesn't graft back on, it will allow the underlying wound to grow in new tissue and when the old stuff falls off you'll have good stuff underneath! Agree don't ever let it dry out!

 

[Sommano]

Don't know if this will help, but the e-vet prescribed augmentin for my chickens when I had a similar incident, and then the chicken vet prescribed bactrim. I know you can order antibiotics for fish off of Chewy (they're the same as human antibiotics). Not sure if chicken antibiotics are easily available without prescription. If you do treat them, you can't eat the eggs for a month or so after you finish, as the eggs will have antibiotics in them. Vet also had us do a dilute betadine rinse daily along with silvadene (anti-infective) cream. You could no doubt get betadine at the drug store...they had us dilute with distilled water until it was tea colored. No bandages, open to air. Don't know about the exposed neck. Rotten smell does sound like infection to me as well. Eventually the dead tissue dried up and fell off. It was super gross but when it did they had nice, clean red wound beds underneath and everything healed quickly after that.

Again, don't know if this helps but just passing on what our chicken vet had us do...and my girls are healing beautifully.

Thank you!
We have her unbandaged with a thick layer of antibiotic ointment. And we have her some amoxicillin 250g before her bedtime.
She’s in the garage.

 

[Sommano]

Hi everyone,
Here’s an update on my girl Rebel today.
We have her unwrapped and sleeping in the garage for the healing.
She no longer spews mucus.
She still slightly smells like rotten meat.
She’s on 250mg amoxicillin twice a day.
She’s drinking water a lot more now and my daughter has been feeding her every 4 hours but she backs up from eating sometimes. Maybe it’s painful for her from swallowing the chicken feed mush. (I honestly don’t know.)
We slather triple antibiotic ointment on her open wounds twice a day but I am going to have my daughter do it three maybe four times since I work during the day and it looks like it’s dried out by the time I get home from work.
I’ve noticed she has a swollen eye now. (Here’s a picture of her eye.) I sprayed some poultry spray on it.
And I also, my manager at work said it was okay but I want y’alls advice as well, can I feed her cooked, plain, steel cut oatmeal?

Thanks everyone!

 

[SnapdragonQ]

I don't think a little oatmeal would hurt her, but if she's only ever gotten chicken feed up until now just a little bit. Sudden diet changes would probably not be helpful. You could give her some mashed up hard boiled egg, or mix it with some feed that's softened with warm water. It might be easier for her to get it down and the egg will add some extra protein.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi everyone,
Here’s an update on my girl Rebel today.
We have her unwrapped and sleeping in the garage for the healing.
She no longer spews mucus.
She still slightly smells like rotten meat.
She’s on 250mg amoxicillin twice a day.
She’s drinking water a lot more now and my daughter has been feeding her every 4 hours but she backs up from eating sometimes. Maybe it’s painful for her from swallowing the chicken feed mush. (I honestly don’t know.)
We slather triple antibiotic ointment on her open wounds twice a day but I am going to have my daughter do it three maybe four times since I work during the day and it looks like it’s dried out by the time I get home from work.
I’ve noticed she has a swollen eye now. (Here’s a picture of her eye.)
And I also, my manager at work said it was okay but I want y’alls advice as well, can I feed her cooked, plain, steel cut oatmeal?

Thanks everyone!

Poor girl!
I would try to flush the wounds at least once a day since you are still noticing a rotten smell.
It may be coming from the eye - hard to know. The swollen eye is concerning as well. Can you open it and take a look to see if there's pus in it? If there is, then flush with saline, press out the pus the best you can and apply eye ointment (like Terramycin) or you can use plain triple antibiotic ointment into the eye. (eye would need flushing and ointment at least 2X a day)

Everyone has their opinion on what to feed. I'm not a fan of giving oatmeal. Her feed is the most nutritionally balanced, but you may entice her with some scrambled egg. It's not in season right now and a bit pricey, but a lot of folks also offer bits of watermelon to sick or injured birds just to help keep some interest. That said if she won't eat well at all, then try a bit of oatmeal to see if she likes that. It can be regular rolled oats - steal cut are more expensive, but if it's something you will use yourself too, the give it a go.

 

[Sommano]

I don't think a little oatmeal would hurt her, but if she's only ever gotten chicken feed up until now just a little bit. Sudden diet changes would probably not be helpful. You could give her some mashed up hard boiled egg, or mix it with some feed that's softened with warm water. It might be easier for her to get it down and the egg will add some extra protein.

We tried the hard boiled egg tonight. And she didn’t eat it. But I think it’s because she was just full from the mashed up feed. But we will definitely try again in the morning.

 

[Sommano]

Poor girl!
I would try to flush the wounds at least once a day since you are still noticing a rotten smell.
It may be coming from the eye - hard to know. The swollen eye is concerning as well. Can you open it and take a look to see if there's pus in it? If there is, then flush with saline, press out the pus the best you can and apply eye ointment (like Terramycin) or you can use plain triple antibiotic ointment into the eye. (eye would need flushing and ointment at least 2X a day)

Everyone has their opinion on what to feed. I'm not a fan of giving oatmeal. Her feed is the most nutritionally balanced, but you may entice her with some scrambled egg. It's not in season right now and a bit pricey, but a lot of folks also offer bits of watermelon to sick or injured birds just to help keep some interest. That said if she won't eat well at all, then try a bit of oatmeal to see if she likes that. It can be regular rolled oats - steal cut are more expensive, but if it's something you will use yourself too, the give it a go.

Hi Wyorp,
There is actually visible pus coming from her swollen eye, she wouldn’t let me get a cotton ball soaked with the poultry spray so I ended up spraying her eye instead. I’ll administer some ointment since that’s all I have at the moment first thing in the morning.
We tried giving her a mashed hard boiled egg tonight but she wouldn’t eat it, I think maybe because she was full from the feed. At my job, we have cooked steel cut oatmeal and my manager let me take a packet home for her. He said I can feed it to her in small portions because it’ll “explode” their stomachs(?). Not sure what he meant by that so I had to ask everyone on here.
Oh also we have fruit at my job, as well. We have pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe and strawberries. Can I possibly entice her with any of those?

 

[tdan]

Glad she sounds like she's doing better! Look forward to updates

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hi Wyorp,
There is actually visible pus coming from her swollen eye, she wouldn’t let me get a cotton ball soaked with the poultry spray so I ended up spraying her eye instead. I’ll administer some ointment since that’s all I have at the moment first thing in the morning.
We tried giving her a mashed hard boiled egg tonight but she wouldn’t eat it, I think maybe because she was full from the feed. At my job, we have cooked steel cut oatmeal and my manager let me take a packet home for her. He said I can feed it to her in small portions because it’ll “explode” their stomachs(?). Not sure what he meant by that so I had to ask everyone on here.
Oh also we have fruit at my job, as well. We have pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe and strawberries. Can I possibly entice her with any of those?

OK If you are seeing visible pus in the eye, that needs to be removed. Even though you are giving antibiotics, chicken pus is usually a semi-hard cheesy material and has to be physically removed, it won't dry up on it's own.
A warm compress may help you get the eye open. Gently swaddling her in a towel may also help you control her better too. Do the best you can to work on getting the pus out - that may be the source of the odor. Flush well and apply your ointment. You may need to remove more pus as it comes.

As for the steel cut oats, I don't think they would make a chickens stomach explode. Food goes into the crop first, then to the "stomach" proventriculous, then to the gizzard where food is ground up (this is why chickens use grit fro processing) then of course it goes into the intestines, etc. But cooked oats may be better since she's not well and struggling. My birds aren't that big a fan of hard boiled eggs unless it's just the yolk, they prefer theirs scrambled LOL Melon and strawberries sound good. I've never given pineapple, but it won't hurt her. https://poultry.extension.org/articles/poultry-anatomy/avian-digestive-system/
This pullet has an eye infection from respiratory disease, but the process of removing pus due to infection is the same.

 

[Eggcessive]

Rather than oatmeal, which is not good as a primary feed, mix her usual feed into some warm water and make it into an oatmeal consistancy. Then add water to it throught the day to rehydrate it. Change it daily. The longer pus stays in the eye, it may become harder to get out, as pus tends to solidify.

Since there is a bad odor, the wounds should be cleaned with a disinfectant, such as chlorhexidene, betadine, or similar. Even antibacterial soap and water would work. Clean it twice a day. Hopefully, the infection will clear up.