Roo Attacked! (With Nasty Pictures!)

[srvan47]

We got our very first flock in March - 3 hens and a rooster and have had good luck with them- no serious problems. This is the first time I've posted and I'm really concerned and my local vet doesn't do chickens so I'm not sure if anyone here knows what to do.

Our chickens were out free roaming the other (like many days in the past) and we got home about 7:00 and I went to go shut them up since they were already in the coop and found our rooster with his rear end darn near taken off. I'm thinking now that whatever got a hold of him was scared away when we pulled up because I cannot believe he's not dead. Everytime he moved, the tooth mark holes were making whistling noises like a punctured lung but from his rear. He seemed alert- in pain but he was up on his perch and had moved around so we left him for the night not sure what we would find in the morning. Well yesterday morning, he was wide awake and alert and when I opened their door to their run, he flew right down from his perch and went outside with the girls. He seems to be acting just fine. My husband even feed him meal worms so I know he's eating. Well tonight, I went inside and took a look and his skin is turning green. I'm assuming infection? Unless their bare skin reacts without having any feathers. Can I give him antibiotics? Is there anything we can do or should we just put him down? I'm attaching 2 pictures of when we first found him (and possibly a video if it'll let me post it) and some pics of what I got toninght. Please help me out!

 

[OneCrazyCowgirl]

Oh wow poor buddy. I don't know much but if he is important to you I wouldn't think of putting him down unless he is in so much pain you have to. I personally would put on antibiotic. I would go to a local feed store or a vet. Ask the feed store if they have any medicine for injuries. Even if your vet doesn't do chickens. He/she would probably know what to do. Hope he gets better.

 

[delisha]

I would not let this poor bird suffer a moment longer. Infection is running rampant, and so is common sense.

If you wanted to have birds and wanted to treat this bird you should have treated him the first night. At the very latest the next morning. I am sure you know and understand open wounds untreated, get infected. Especially animal attacks and bites. Infection is very very painful. Raising animals is a lot of responsibility and a lot of work. It is inconvenient. Sometimes you have to get up in the middle of the night and do something instead of sleep. Sometimes instead of going into the house you need to treat a bird before going to bed. Treat the bird or put the poor thing out of its misery,

 

[Thebirdwisperr]

I'm guessing that a canine (dog, fox, coyote) bit him. I personally would go to the feed store and ask what you should do.
I hope he gets better. Maybe you should try electro-lites which would help his sistem fight off an infection.

Good luck,
Thebirdwisperr​

 

[srvan47]

I would not let this poor bird suffer a moment longer. Infection is running rampant, and so is common sense.

If you wanted to have birds and wanted to treat this bird you should have treated him the first night. At the very latest the next morning. I am sure you know and understand open wounds untreated, get infected. Especially animal attacks and bites. Infection is very very painful. Raising animals is a lot of responsibility and a lot of work. It is inconvenient. Sometimes you have to get up in the middle of the night and do something instead of sleep. Sometimes instead of going into the house you need to treat a bird before going to bed. Treat the bird or put the poor thing out of its misery,

I admit we screwed up by not doing something the first night but I haven't really educated myself with chicken first aid. We aren't some city people who just got chickens because we thought it would be fun. We have raised meat pigs for years and decided to add the layers to our little "farm" for fresh eggs. I have spent many nights awake with sick dogs where I haven't gotten any sleep. I called our vet first thing the next morning and they said they didn't do chickens but if he seemed to be up and alert that we shouldn't worry and to keep his coop clean and we shouldn't have a problem with infection. Yes, I should have known better but I listened to them and this is where we're at. I would love to treat him so he'll be okay but it is a chicken. Just because whatever it was (we're thinking a coyote) didn't get him then, doesn't mean it won't come back at a later time to get him. It's the circle of life. So instead of being lectured, can someone please tell me if there is something else we can besides spraying it with iodine that would help heal it. The closest feed store is 30 minutes away and I do plan on heading over there tomorrow but in case someone there doesn't know what to do, I'd like to have an idea.

 

[OneCrazyCowgirl]

I wish I could help you more. I recommend doing some research. I can look some things up and send you the links.

 

[OneCrazyCowgirl]

Dog attack / treatment for badly mauled chicken

If your bird has been attacked by a fox or dog you need to clean the wounds immediately, the saliva in the mouth hold bacteria that is deadly to open wounds

Isolate the bird to a warm clean environment, it may also be suffering from shock, if you have any Electrolytes then put some into the water for the bird, it helps to relieve the shock

Not Severe

If the wounds are not bad then just clean and disinfect and watch the bird for any signs of internal bleeding that may indicate internal wounds

Once you have cleaned up the wounds.. dab them with straight betadine using gauze not cotton wool... this is iodine... try and dry the area.. or blow flies will get to her - don't leave her outside ...


Severe

If the wounds are severe, gashing and tearing away of the flesh then you need to clean the wound out as best you can- pick out any dead tissue or loose scabs or debris you find in or around the wound.

Be very gentle doing this so you don�t cause undue pain to the bird or more damage to the area.

Clean the wounds with warm water with some betadine in it ... Make sure you use a spray action not a rubbing action to clean the wound or use a dabbing motion if your sure any debris is out of the wound

Try to get as much of the dirt and saliva you can out .. it will have heaps of bacteria in it and this is what will probably end up killing the hen if stress and going into shock doesn't

If the wounds are not really deep then they should heal up ok

Don't wrap her up .. keep her warm .. give her Electrolytes in her drinking water

Give her softer foods not so many grains... and lots of fresh water

Don�t over dose in your eagerness to help her ok, if you do decide to use medications

Allow her space.. and give her privacy to sleep .. peace and quiet is very necessary or she will stress out and this will make her much worse... watch for respiratory signs... yellow foamy droppings.. swelling of the sinus or eyes..

I would also put some water soluble Tylan in to her drinking water to just cover all bases at this stage

Very Severe

You'll need to expose healthy tissue before the wound can heal. Once the wound is pink and clean (there may be some bleeding - try to minimize this but it may be necessary in order to clean out dead tissue).

Next, I'd avoid using wound powder for a couple of reasons- iodine is fine for flushing a wound but kills healthy, young healing cells and can be detrimental to the healing process.

I would get an antibiotic ointment (furacin, dermagel, polysporin, hibitane ointment, ) or even honey, which has great healing properties (as does plain, white granulated sugar) and pack the wound with it.

It's important that the healing flesh at this point, stays moist to encourage healing.

You can dry it out after the tissue has grown in.

If you find greenish patches could either be gangrene, which isn't very good, or severe bruising- better than gangrene.

Either way, I would suggest getting her on some antibiotic immediately to try to stop further infection � Tylan 200 is what I recommend.

It is available through your vet and is a potent antibiotic.

Put her on injectable Tylan 200, given orally, at a dose of 5 to 15 mg/kg twice a day for a week to 10 days.

If you cannot get Tylan, ask your vet what they have available that you can use.. it must be fairly strong to do the job. Baytril can also be used, at a dose of 15 mg/kg twice a day for a week to 10 days.

If you cant get this then try and get Pen G Procaine (penicillin) which you can probably get from your local feed store or agricultural supply store, depending on which country you're in.

If you get pen G procaine, she'll need 30 000 IU/kg once per day, subcutaneous or intramuscularly (in the breast muscle) using a 22 gauge needle.

Most Pen G procaine is 100 000 IU per ml, so if she is 1 kg, she'd need 30 000 or 1/3 of a cc.

If you need a hand calculating the dosage, I can help you.

When you inject penicillin, ALWAYS draw back on the plunger of the syringe to make sure you don't suck any blood back into the syringe, as this means you have gone into a vein, and these medications are not meant to go directly into the blood stream, withdraw the needle and insert it again in another spot drawing back to make sure you are not in a vein, the likelihood of you doing this is very slim.

You Cannot put penicillin into a vein or it will be the end of her.

That is why I sometimes prefer subcutaneous, as it causes less bruising and you can tell if you are hitting a vessel, but it is less effective as an antibiotic doing it this way

I'd do all of this right away or the infection will really take hold.

The dog or fox that attacked the bird:
Is it yours or a neighbor�s?
If it's a neighbor�s dog, maybe they can help pay for her vet bills and medical expenses?
If it�s a fox, then you may want to think about predator proofing your yard and putting out some traps, once they have had a taste of chicken they come back time and again, as an easy source of meat

Infected tissue after a few days:
If the infection has set in, you may want to take her to a vet so they can freeze the area and open up or remove any infected/dead tissue.

Most vets are not "chicken vets" so they will most likely tell you to cut your losses.

However, your chicken stands a decent chance of recovery and her life is important too- but many vets don't understand that.

Anyway, as long as you can control the infection, she should heal fine.

It's important to keep the wound clean and healthy. They can heal amazingly well from huge wounds, as long as the tissue is kept healthy.

Colloidal silver - give the cleaned wound a flush with sterile (out of the bottle) colloidal silver. Continue giving her the colloidal silver orally,too- I don't know what concentration you may have, but usually giving half a tsp orally of straight CS. But again, it depends on the strength of it.


Be careful using wounds powders:
Many of them contain ingredients that are designed to "eat" proud flesh and granulation tissue- the tissue that fills in a wound. If a cow or horse gets proud flesh on its leg, the powder will reduce it. But if you are trying to fill in a wound with healthy tissue, the powder may dissolve it.

Charcoal, to my knowledge, is great for absorbing toxins, Iodoform sounds (as you said) like a form of iodine (which can be hard on new tissue), camphor has antibacterial properties
Stick to using an ointment.
Keeps the tissue moist, which you need to do to keep it healing.



Greenish patches in or around the wound:
If you find any greenish areas- if they are in the wound already or they are patches that are appearing under the skin, not really close to the wound

If they are appearing right in the wound, then I would "scrub it till it bleeds" - meaning, pare away the dead tissue until you reach healthy tissue- bleeding means you've reached live tissue.

You don't want it to bleed excessively (the bird has already probably lost quite a bit of blood during the attack) but when you can see seepage, then you're nearing healthy tissue. If the patches are not in the wound and are under the skin, hopefully you can just wait until your vet can deal with it.

The patches may slough off on their own but they may also need to be removed by your vet...

SOURCE: ThePoultrySite

 

[srvan47]

I wish I could help you more. I recommend doing some research. I can look some things up and send you the links.

That would be great! I really appreciate it!

 

[hecatesmoon]

Please know that I have no idea what I am doing....
Uh...well...I guess the first thing I would do is separate him. He needs a very clean living space if possible.
Ummmm....well.....then I suppose I would flush the wounds.....
And then disinfect with.... I don't know. I might try Neosporin? and cover the wounds? Or....well....for us personally, I use honey as an antiseptic but you couldn't use that if you had him outside.
I might try acv and garlic in his water or find an antibiotic from the feed store, but you'd have to look up most likely bacterias of the mouth and try to match up an antibiotic as a best combatant....

 

[hecatesmoon]

At this point...perhaps the green is bruising under the skin?...