Injured Hen

[BarredFlock]

Hey guys! I have about a 6-month old Barred Rock Hen who was attacked by something approximately 2 weeks ago. Upon initial inspection show small puncture wound on her hock. I treated the wound with an iodine flush and applied Neosporin (No pain reliever) the wound closed up but the hen continues to be in bad shape.

She continues to eat and drink if I hand feed her but will not bear much weight on that leg. I washed her up real good last night because she smells terrible and will not get out of the nesting box, I found some pretty nasty looking black and green skin on her entire left side. She has no open wounds but she has a very foul odor. I picked up penicillin today, I know that it is 1 tenths of a milliliter per pound for dosage and I will start that tonight but I'm just wondering if anybody else has any advice? I need to add she has not laid in 2 weeks.

Could this discolored skin just still be bruising after this long and she still very sore, or could there be some necrosis going on internally?

 

[chicknmania]

Sounds like some kind of Necrosis, especially because of the smell...that's horrible. I don't think it would be bruising but hard to say since you don't really know what happened. I wonder if what attacked her could have been something venomous, (with some kind of slow acting venom maybe not enough to kill a chicken) or something like a water snake that, although they're not venomous, are notorious for all the crap they have on their fangs that then causes a bad infection in the bite area. Anyway, I can't think of anything I would do besides what you're doing, except take her to a vet, if you have that means. I think you're supposed to administer the penicillin for five days, intramuscular, in the breast muscle.

 

[chicknmania]

Any improvement today?

 

[micstrachan]

Aww, poor girl. This does not sound good. I hope the antibiotics help. Is an avian Vet an option?

 

[BarredFlock]

So the penicillin seems to be doing something, the bruised black and green skin underneath her wing, down her side

has turned into this... I know it still looks bad but she's made huge improvements.

 

[BarredFlock]

 

[chicknmania]

Wow! Well, that's good that she's making an improvement! Is the smell going away?

 

[getaclue]

That's necrosis. Treat with both the oral antibiotics, and continue with neosporin on the bad tissue. If you can get your doctor to call in some silvadene (generic is fine) for you, it works even better on skin than the neosporin, and it's not very expensive.

 

[BarredFlock]

Any idea what would have caused this?

 

[chicknmania]

As i said before if you research it you'll see that snake bite frequently causrs necrosis. From your description of her injury it sounds like a bite of some kind.