Poor Hurt Lovie...

[PineBurrowPeeps]

About a month ago I met this woman who lives down the road from me when I was interested in buying a horse. We became friends. She had 3 chickens, and 3 baby turkeys. Within two weeks of knowing her I ended up with the turkey poults because she started to have a predetor problem with foxes and didn't want to put them outside since one of her hens had been eaten by a fox recently.
I took them, hey free food! They were always kept in a brooder, and before that came from a well known hatchery as day olds so I put them in with my meat birds and my own turkey poult who is almost the exact same age. All is well there.
She then had the Roo and one more hen. She wanted me to take them but I can't have a Roo (neither can she technically but she doesn't have horrible neighbors like me so no one to bother her about it) so I turned her down.
She e-mailed me two days ago and told me that her Roo kept getting out of the "coop" an uncovered chain link dog kennel with a dog house in it and that he got eaten by the fox.
She said that her lone hen was now hiding in the dog house almost all the time and seemed depressed and wanted to know if I would take her.
I agreed.
I went and picked her up yesterday morning and put her into quarentine immeadiatly since I was going out for the day. Gave her food and water and went on my way. Came back yesterday afternoon and noticed that she was still looking very BLAH and she had her rear towards me, it looked like she had poo stuck to her butt so I picked her up and was thinking maybe she had diarhea and that I would take her inside and wash up her bum.
I took her in and under the kitchen lights was shocked to find her vent half scabbed up and several pucture wounds around it.
At this point I also noticed that she has mites

I wash her bum and start to clean the scabs off so I can see what I'm dealing with and they are ooozing, pussing, bad smelling wounds. I found out today that the injury happened about a week ago when her little maltese dog got out and into the coop and bit the hen but she thought she had just pulled feathers out and never checked the hen!

I am livid for this hen and now I'm starting to wonder if it's too late for her. She's not quite "lethargic" but she's not far off either.

I washed her all up, soaked her bum after I found a maggot and was waiting for more but haven't found any more. Then I slathered her entire bum and some of her tummy with neosporin and I also had to clip her nails because I noticed that her feet would curl under and splay out in an odd direction because she had the longest chicken nails I have ever seen. They were deforming her feet they were so long.

Now she's in my chicken hospital and I have noticed that since I placed her in there yesterday afternoon she has not pooped at all.
I'm not sure if she was eating there or not, I know she was feeding her but she's kinda ditzy and doesn't seem the type to actually pay attention (ya think?!). I haven't seen her eat here yet. I'm going to go and make her a warm mash with her food and see how she takes that.

She looks like a silver Wyandott to me. She's a big girl.

So, I wanted to basically ask two questions.

Her whole body has a not so great odor about her. Can you give a chicken a bath?

Is there anything I could be doing to entice her to eat?

I already have vitamins and electrolights in her water and I have terremyicin but I'm not sure if I should be giving it to her for a wound?

I'll take pics of her later when my cell is charged. I only have a cell cam on my blackberry.

So I'm calling her Lovie because she was SO good while I was handling her and cleaning her up.

Poor Lovie must be so scared at losing her friends and then having to deal with all this and nobody caring over there

I have already decided that if she doesn't start to poo or eat or if she gets horribly worse that we will cull her. I do NOT want to make this poor girl suffer if there are major things wrong internally. I will try to save her, I just don't want her to suffer needlessly if it's a lost cause.

Thanks for any help.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

I wanted to add that this "friend" down the road had only had these three chickens for about 3 months and got them from a person who had a ton so I suspect the mites came from the original owner. She only got the chickens because she wanted them to eat ticks, thus she let them out all day and went off to work when everyone knows we have tons of foxes around here.


**I bought poultry dust for the mites yesterday evening for her but wanted to wait to apply it in case I was going to give her some sort of bath**

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

Well I just got her to eat some old fashioned oats out of my hand.. It's something.

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

That's exactly what I would do....give her a nice warm bath. It might help relax her vent and she could poo. Just use some mild dish detergent. I think she would probably enjoy being handled and the warm bath. I would start her on some poly-vi-sol drops 3 times a day and give her some chopped up boiled eggs for protein. You're doing great...thanks for saving her life.l

 

[Chickenaddict]

As far as the wound goes i'm not sure how to treat it but the bathing thing i do. Id fill up the tub with warm water and either get some poultry shampoo or you can use baby shampoo (which is what i use) If she stayed still for you while you were cleaning her up she will love a bath. Mine had mites this winter but with 40 below temps for weeks on end all i could do was dust them with the mite dust which did not sure it and they came back. In the spring i gutted the coop and run, dusted the ground in the run and various other places they like to hang out as well as disinfected the coop and then put the mite dust in the coop. Poor girl shes been through sooo much and i feel so bad for her. My thoughts and prayers are with you and her i really hope she pulls thru this. wish there was more i could tell you about treating the wound but i have been very fortunate to not have to deal with that yet. Best of luck to you and lovie

 

[jjthink]

Hi - So sorry to have to skim this in a flash - about to have a computer system shut down - but if puncture wounds she may immediately need oral or injectible antibiotics - neosporin won't be enough. Someone willc ome along with the right script for that, or call an avian vet if you can. Poor thing - thank you for helping her. Will check back.
JJ

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

I gave her a bath. She did sit still in the water. I washed her up with some Dr. Bronners soap (I use it for everything), now she's back in the hospital with a clean towel to lay on. She is sooo calm.

I didn't find any other wounds on her.
Got a much better look at her bottom too. It looks alot better than some of the other vent wounds I've seen on here. There are two puncture wounds under the vent, each one smaller than 1/4" and then the main wound to the vent itself which looks like it was healing on it's own but had a slight infection.It's not a puncture or a rip or anything. I'll try to get pics of her bottom.
All in all the wounds themselves look like they will heal but it's her attitude that makes me worry if something else is going on with her internally. Could she be depressed from losing her Roo perhaps? He just died two days ago.

 

[PineBurrowPeeps]

whoops double post

 

[ChickyPooh]

Keep us posted on her condition. Poor Lovie!

 

[Chickenaddict]

It sounds like shes been through a very traumatic experience. I would give it a few days and see if she perks up. The hard part is she is quarentined so you can't add a buddy for her until you know shes safe and totally healed up. If it were me dealing with this i would be spending as much time with her as i could just talking to her and petting her letting her know she is not alone.... helps with the bonding too