PLEASE HELP!!!! Fluid leaking from my hen's chest!?!?!?!?

[SarahFish]

I just went down to check on my chickens, and one of my only laying hens has some sort of fluid leaking from her chest area. This is my first time with chickens and I am really worried abou her. She's a BSL just over 5 months old. She appears to be fine otherwise. She did tuck her head toward the area and was messing with it a little bit. I picked her up and was looking at the area and all her feathers are saturated and it looked strange to me? It almost looks like there's a smal hole there. Any idea what might be wrong with her?! I'm freaking out a bit.

 

[speckledhen]

Could it have leaked from her mouth instead? She could have punctured her crop on something, a nail or screw, maybe. You need to really see if you can find an actual hole in the crop area so you know how to proceed.

 

[SarahFish]

Yeah, it's definitely a hole. It almost looks like a mix between being ripped/torn open and a puncture wound. What do I do?!?!??! I'm so upset and I'm definietely freaking out now!

 

[speckledhen]

Gosh, I'm not really sure. You could suture it with fishing line, I guess. You could put a bandage of some sort over it with antibiotic ointment on it and it will probably heal over okay.

 

[Ema]

I don't have any experience with chicken wounds but my first instinct would be to clean it and then try to either gauze it or try to sew it closed after making sure it was clean, do you have any Iodine?? if I went the route of sewing it I would either put polysporin without the pain meds on it and then gauze it, or super glue to keep it together better. I might also be inclined in cutting the feathers around the wound so it could be seen better. I hope someone else can give a better answer. I would also separate her form the rest just so no one else messed with the wound.

 

[chkn]

First off, something might have attacked it so make sure they are secure. Someone here just mentioned a crop injury like that and were recommended the liquid bandaid or superglue. I can't vouch for it but the liquid bandaid sounds reasonable.