Open navel chick doing well after 48 hours. Here's what I did.

[MargaretYakoda]

I had a difficult hatch recently. One chick had a red, slightly smaller than pencil eraser sized blob/wound protruding from her navel.

I used some Vetwrap and made a little set of overalls for her. I sprayed her bottom with Blue Kote, (actually sprayed the blukote inside a shell, then tried to put THAT on her.... ) then soaked a pad in Vetrycin and put that on the blob. The overalls went over her butt, around her belly, and provided some counter pressure whenever she tried to stand up.

I kept them on her for about six hours, and kept her in the incubator all that time also. When I removed the overalls the navel appeared to nicely scabbed over. So I put her in the brooder with her hatch mates.


And here she is today.



No swelling, no sign of infection (knock on wood) and extremely active in the brooder!
I can only tell she was the "sick" one because of the leftover blue kote on her bum.


I know that mushy chick can set in as long as two weeks after hatch, so I've still got my fingers crossed. But I'm hopeful.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

very nice !!! did it have to poop when you had it on?

 

[MargaretYakoda]

Updating to say the original chick is still doing VERY well. She's a pullet running with the rest of the flock these days.

A few days ago I had another hatch, which went much better than the first one (I'm still getting used to working with an incubator!) There was one open navel chick, who, at first, didn't look anywhere near as bad as this chick did, so I put the chick in some overalls but I didn't put the band around the belly area. This was a mistake.

A few hours later she still had the open navel, so I left her in the incubator overnight. In the morning her small open navel was as big as the original chick had hatched with. So the overalls with no belly band had the effect of worsening the open navel.

I very nearly euthanized her right then, but I didn't have the heart so I redid the overalls, this time WITH the belly band. Then I left her in the incubator for another four hours. Poor thing spent nearly 24 hours in the incubator after hatch.... But! The belly band made ALL THE DIFFERENCE.

I have already given all these chicks away, so it's unlikely I'll hear if this chick lives past a few days, but maybe. And if I do hear, I'll update here. But she was looking great when I passed her on to her new flock keeper, so I am hopeful.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

LOL, no the first chick did not poop in the overalls.

And the second chick DID poop all over my hand just as soon as I took her out of the overalls in the morning. So, I think we can pretty confidently conclude that the overalls hold everything in. So, don't leave them on for more than a few hours, LOL. That would be bad.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

guess i missed that few hr. thing, was thinking few days. LOL