I need to lance/drain an absessed hock, any advice?

[Sandi630]

Oops one more thing, the ichthamol works well but is a pain to clean up. I think it's petroluem based and always seems to leave a film. You can buy ichthamol in a drug store too, usually behind the pharmacy counter.

-Sandi

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Thank you all for your imput!

I put Skipper in the hospital pen this afternoon. That alone will help her, she can have her own food & water dishes without being bumped away by her flockmates. Plus there won't be any big pesky roosters trying to mate with her, poor dear, when they do she can't hold herself up and they squash her flat.

I found all sorts of helpful medications at the feed store, the only problem is that they come in horse-sized containers with price tags to match. I cannot justify the expense to treat a chicken, so we'll see how much we can help using more economical materials.

Tonight I soaked some cotton squares in epsom salted water, then tied it to her hock with an old sock. Tomorrow after church I will attempt to lance & drain the infection using the syringe I bought today. Then I'll put regular antibiotic ointment on it & pray fervently for her recovery.

Speckledhen, I'll look for those posts about your rooster Zane. What do you mean, he can't walk? Can he get around by hopping? If I can't help Skipper to use both legs I'll have to find someone who wants a house or caged chicken. I free range my flock every afternoon & I fear a blond hen with a pronounced limp will be awfully attractive to the hawks.

Please keep Skipper in your prayers, and me too as I try to remedy her injury. I really dislike all this icky business with bodily discharges, wish I could phone it in or do the job using 10-foot poles instead...

 

[cassie]

One thing that is important with abscesses is to keep them open. It is important that they heal from the inside out. Just open it every day and make sure the pus and gunk is out of it.

 

[speckledhen]

Yes, never stitch it up closed all the way so it can drain, but you need to keep dirt out of it, too, so a bandage should be applied.

Zane hops on his good leg, using his wings like crutches. His bad leg is stuck in a bent position, no feeling or movement in his toes, though we did therapy of several types and tried and tried, but the damage was too great.

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Good luck, Sunny!

(Post the photos, but not the smell! Maybe a photo of you with cotton balls in your nostrils?)

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Poor Skipper. I had poulticed her hock with an epsom salt solution and left it on overnight, re-wet it this morning and left it on all day. This afternoon I got my operating table all set up, had my 9-year-old assistant ready to hold the bird steady, wrapped the patient in a towel so she couldn't move around, cleaned off her leg, located the puffiest place on her hock, jabbed the needle in deep...


...and...

...nothing. I squeezed & poked, expecting a geyser of infected matter to come out, all that came out was blood. I tried in several places around the hock, all in swollen places, at different depths, and nothing but blood came out. I poked & stabbed her as much as I dared, kept hoping I'd finally find the mother lode of infected matter, but never did.

The poor dear, when I unwrapped her she gave me such a dirty look, as if to say "What was that all about? I thought you were going to make me feel better!" I schmeared antibacterial ointment all over it & put her back in the hospital pen. I sure hope I didn't make it worse...

 

[ruth]

Unfortunately you will need to lance it - in the place the person showed you. When a chicken gets an infection that becomes abcessed, it is NOT a liquid puss that can be drained out with a needle. It will resemble in look and consistency anything from string cheese to cottage cheese to rubber that will need to be cleaned out. Then pack with Neosporin and loosely wrap with vetwrap. Check and wash each day for the first few days. If you make a good clean incision using a new single-edge razor blade it will heal very quickly.

 

[purpletree23]

Lancing an abscess will not work. Chickens don't have liquid pus like humans. It is more of a cottage cheese consistency and the infection site needs to be slit and the infection sometimes pulled out with good tweezers. The syringe won't work. It WILL however be useful to irrigate the wound with diluted betadine. The solution to irrigate the wound should look like weak tea. Use straight betadine to disinfect the area before working on it.

Try again, your on the right track. Because she has had the infection for so long I would use Pen G for 10 days administered intramuscularly.

Please only soak her hock in warm water with epsom salt for 10-15 minutes. Leaving a damp bandage with epsom salt on it overnight will break down the skin tissue very badly.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

So you're saying I need to slice down below the skin with a razor until I find the infected matter, which will be semi-solid and not liquid, yes? And then pick it out with tweezers if it can't be squeezed out?
Oh. My.

It makes me nervous to be cutting in this area, there's so little meat there, I'm afraid of slicing through an essential tendon or ligament and rendering her permanantly disabled.

Should I give her a few days to recover from being jabbed with the needle today?

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Holy cow! I'm glad I'm not you! You know, with how scattered and brief the help has been, if someone says something you like the sound of, PM them and ask them more questions. Or even PM them and ask if they can call you, or you call them, or SOMETHING! It just isn't going well with hit and runs here. Let her rest until you get a definite plan in order. Good luck!