Martina's broken wing

[Tabitha31]

Novice chicken mom here. Our bad dog decided to "play" with a couple of my girls. He plays much too rough so now one girl, Lt Dannie, has a missing wing. My friend and I bandaged her up and she seems to be doing fine. She is even getting back up in the roost already. Martina however had a severely damaged broken wing which we tried to stick up but it is still hanging very low. She moves around okay. My question is should I try to remove the badly damaged portion of her wing or just let it be? She is the grey girl in the pictures.

 

[Smileybans]

Did you make a decision to remove or not? I’ve never felt with this before, new as well, but I’m interested to know how she is doing.

 

[humblehillsfarm]

I am so sorry no one saw this post sooner. Anytime that happens, it isn't because someone isn't wanting to help, the thread just got buried by other new threads.

It honestly might be too late because bone healing starts immediately, but the wing should have been wrapped snugly to the body that way at the very least, the wing will heal in a natural position rather than drooping. Plenty of chickens have survived with amputated wings if it comes to that. I myself had a hen get smacked by a bear, breaking likely more than just her wing. Based on feel alone, I believe her wing was dislocated at the shoulder. I conferred with a neighbor who works in the poultry field (meat chickens) and he states he butchers chickens all the time that had obvious dislocations that healed with scar tissue with no treatment whatsoever. Her entire body is drooping, so it probably smashed her ribs too. Regardless, she recovered but is a little droopy.

I wrapped her wing with vetwrap for about two weeks and isolated her for about three days. I let her back with the flock, wrapped wing and all and she did well until I took it off. She also had a lot of feathers ripped out, causing skin tears and bleeding so I stuck a trauma pad with ointment on it to her back, which is what the white thing is.

Here's an excellent article on how to wrap the wing to the body: https://www.gardenbetty.com/chicken-first-aid-how-to-wrap-a-sprained-wing/

Also, with any break, the chances of the bone throwing a blood clot are high. Start the chicken on some aspirin (1 mg per pound of body weight, but you can round up as a little extra won't hurt). Aspirin is a safe pain reliever for poultry and a blood thinner.

How is your hen doing today? What did you decide to do?