Meat bird with torn off skin Help?

[ChocolateMouse]

Okay, so long story short one of my month-old CX chickens is missing a chunk of skin on it's chest, below the crop. It decided to tease my dog by sticking it's head out of it's tractor while I was leashing her and she lunged at it. She caught a bunch of feathers mostly, but some skin came off with them.

I'd say the bird is missing a piece of skin maybe 3/4 inch by 1/3rd inch tops on it's chest below the crop, right where the feathering starts. It's honestly probably a little smaller than that even. It WAS torn off, but aside from that the wound is pretty darn clean. Not a puncture, no debris in it, etc. The chicken was nipped and was in a clean brooder within 10 minutes.

I put the bird in their former brooder with clean newspaper for bedding and the smallest of the flock as a companion to make sure it doesn't get picked on and stays clean. It doesn't seem to be in particularly severe distress, it seemed more distressed about being alone for 10 seconds while I moved a second bird in with it than by being attacked. Eating and drinking normal so far.

I was thinking of keeping the treatment simple; let the bird chill out for a moment, bleed a little, coagulate a little, then warm washcloth and 10% iodine. Just wanna make sure I'm on the right track.

Since it's a meaty, I don't want to give any antibiotics. Kind of defeats the purpose of keeping my own chickens to raise. I'd rather eat it only part-way grown than give it antibiotics. Just throwing that out there. Thanks!

 

[BantamLover21]

I think that your treatment plan is fine. I agree with you in that spending time/money on treating with antibiotics for a meat bird isn't worthwhile. The iodine should help sterilize the wound, or you could put some antibiotic ointment on the wound.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I'm glad you agree.

It also looks like the wound is higher up than I thought, high enough to be partially on the crop. I'm going to do lots of TINY meals throughout his treatment because when I fed him tonight and looked at the wound it looked much larger (possibly even tore open a little further) with the expansion of his crop. Since he's a CX and has little inhibition towards eating too much I'll just have to regulate for him. I was already doing 3 meals a day what they can eat in 5 min... I guess that goes up to something like 5 meals a day what they can eat in three min.

Still eating, drinking and pooping fine. I cleaned the would by dabbing at it with warm water on a paper towel, and then iodine the same way. No blood save from the skin at the edges of the wound.