PLEASE HELP! Chicken broke her toe off

[AngelFury]

Let me start off by saying that I have just started raising chickens and these are our first ones. Our chickens are only 2 months old and we live in such a rural area that our nearest vet is 3 hours away and they are closed on weekends. It started this morning when I went out to feed and water my chickens. My 5 year old son came outside to help me this morning. As I was cleaning and filling up their water dish my son was sitting on the ground feeding and playing with the chickens. After cleaning the coop out and refilling their food and water we put them all back inside the coop, except for Crystal. She was roaming around the garden box. After catching her and putting her back in the coop my son started to close the coop door. As he closed it Crystal came running back across the coop, but he didn't see her, and he closed the coop door on her toe. After she let out a loud cry he opened the door again and we found her to be limping. After picking her up to check her out I found that 1/4 of an inch between the knuckle and the tip of her toe had been broken to the point that it is hanging on buy a piece of skin and bleeding. I brought her inside right away. While calming my son I cleaned up her toe with a little bit of cool running water and applied pressure with a sterile gauze pad and got the bleeding to stop. I gave her a bit of ibuprofen on a piece of grape which she gladly took. After that I splinted her toe and taped it up like many of these forums suggested. I did try to put her back in the coop after but the other chickens attacked her so I brought her back inside right away. She is now inside one of my dogs cages. She managed to take the splint off and started the bleeding again. I re-cleaned her toe and placed her back in the cage without another splint, because she really seems to hate it and I don't want her to re-open her wound again. Her toe is now turned sideways so that her toe nail is pointing to her other toes. She is favoring her good foot (of course) but she is still walking on her bad foot and still using it to move around the hay to make a small nest. My main issue is that I was wondering if she will be ok and heal as she is now and be healthy. And when I should put her back in the coop with the other chickens. We all feel just so horrible that she got hurt and we are trying very hard to make sure that she is comfortable and well taken care of. I just don't know what more I can do for her and I worry so much that she won't be ok! Any feed back that you all could give me would be very much appreciated. Thank you all for your time in reading my massage! Have a great day or night depending on where you are!

 

[daoustaj]

I dont know if chickens can metabolize ibuprofen well. I would keep it as clean as possible until its scabbed over really really good. Hopefully the others dont pick at it, wait to put her back out there as long as you can. I use vetricyn and it works good to clean wounds. Hope she is ok. Accidents happen. Mine have almost gotten in there before to.

 

[froggiesheins]

IF the toe is only hanging on by a piece of skin, cut it off. [I know its gross]. Keep her isolated, give her some vitamins in the water and some high energy foods to help jump start her system.

AS FOR HER TOE STUMP: put some neosporin ointment on it, wrap in gauze and use some vet-wrap [I hope you know what that is] to protect the toe, If you do not have that use a strip of gauze to wrap the toe and then tie the ends around her leg to keep it from falling off....hope that helps.
Once the toe is healed and scabbed she can go back with her buddies no problem....LOL

 

[AmberRex]

Sometimes if I'm short of gauze I just use a plaster and some bandage tape...

 

[Judy]

This is from a sticky on the Emergencies forum:

Pain Relief

Aspirin - for pain relief. Dosage is approximately 25 mg per pound of chicken's body weight each day (A standard baby Aspirin is 80 mg, and a standard adult Aspirin pill is 325 mg). This information is from the Poultry Podiatry website. Warning: aspirin thins the blood and should not be used if internal bleeding is suspected or in cases where a wound will not stop bleeding.

 

[Nava]

Sorry a bout what happen, is your son ok?

Tell him it is, as for the chicken she will be fine too, I've done the same thing to one of mine.

Keep her away from the frock cause they will peck at her toes, once she stops bleeding it will scab nicely.

My hens toe was hanging by the skin too, I just cut it off, see if you can do that.

How is she doing?

 

[AngelFury]

I wasn't sure if Ibuprofen would have been the best thing to give her either, however it was the best I could do at the time. I am keeping her and her cage very clean to the point that I may even be going a little over board... Lol. This morning she seems to be doing ok, I'm waiting on her to finish her breakfast before I mess around with her foot. Thank you so much for your reply.

 

[AngelFury]

I dont know if chickens can metabolize ibuprofen well. I would keep it as clean as possible until its scabbed over really really good. Hopefully the others dont pick at it, wait to put her back out there as long as you can. I use vetricyn and it works good to clean wounds. Hope she is ok. Accidents happen. Mine have almost gotten in there before to.

I wasn't sure if Ibuprofen would have been the best thing to give her either, however it was the best I could do at the time. I am keeping her and her cage very clean to the point that I may even be going a little over board... Lol. This morning she seems to be doing ok, I'm waiting on her to finish her breakfast before I mess around with her foot. Thank you so much for your reply.

 

[AngelFury]

Sometimes if I'm short of gauze I just use a plaster and some bandage tape...

I never would have thought of using plaster! Thank you for your reply

 

[AngelFury]

This is from a sticky on the Emergencies forum:

Pain Relief

Aspirin - for pain relief. Dosage is approximately 25 mg per pound of chicken's body weight each day (A standard baby Aspirin is 80 mg, and a standard adult Aspirin pill is 325 mg). This information is from the Poultry Podiatry website. Warning: aspirin thins the blood and should not be used if internal bleeding is suspected or in cases where a wound will not stop bleeding.

From this day on I will be sure to keep Aspirin in the house just for the chickens! God knows when I will have to use it again, Thank you for the info!