Rooster has bone sticking out of neck!

[ChickNanny13]

I am an RN who is a wanna be Vet Tech. I would agree that it looks as if something is sticking in, as opposed to, sticking out. I do also agree that it looks like a really hard feather as well.
Take him to a vet ASAP. If that's not realistic for you...
My suggestion is to get some pliers and boil them (to sterilize,) get some super glue, normal saline, prophylactic antibiotics, clean rags, and an appropriate antimicrobial solution from your feed and seed and start the roo on them prior to the procedure. Clean the area thoroughly with the antimicrobe. Pull the the object out with your clean pliers. If you cannot remove it with minimal difficulty I would leave it alone. Especially if it feels as if it's attached to something inside the body. If you get the object out, flush the wound with normal saline. Apply pressure to clot the bleeding. Clean the area with the antimicrobe again. Super glue the wound shut. Take care not to let any feathers get in the wound or it will not heal. Isolate the bird a couple days so he can heal.

Best solution and if you attempt this, have some help/extra hands in the event it's needed. Then PLEASE let update us.

 

[Cheltaran]

So we've had a better feel of the thing, and it's in quite deep and feels like it's attached somewhere in there. Maybe it's not attached and just feels that way because of how deep it is, but we're not comfortable pulling it out. We did gently try pulling on it very slightly just to see if it had any give, and that seemed to hurt the bird so we left it alone. Definitely won't be pulling the thing out.

To me it seems too big to be an echidna quill, but we could be wrong. Looking at some images of chicken skeletons it kinda looks similar shape to the scapula bone, so I'm REALLY hoping it's some sort of deformed hard feather.

A vet isn't really an option for us, so we're trying to decide if we keep him and just leave it alone, or if we take him to a shelter (there's a sanctuary near us that takes roosters to rehome). Since this is a stray and we don't really have any emotional attachment to him, that might be the better option, but we're undecided still. At least they could get him proper vet treatment.

 

[Fishychix]

So we've had a better feel of the thing, and it's in quite deep and feels like it's attached somewhere in there. Maybe it's not attached and just feels that way because of how deep it is, but we're not comfortable pulling it out. We did gently try pulling on it very slightly just to see if it had any give, and that seemed to hurt the bird so we left it alone. Definitely won't be pulling the thing out.

To me it seems too big to be an echidna quill, but we could be wrong. Looking at some images of chicken skeletons it kinda looks similar shape to the scapula bone, so I'm REALLY hoping it's some sort of deformed hard feather.

A vet isn't really an option for us, so we're trying to decide if we keep him and just leave it alone, or if we take him to a shelter (there's a sanctuary near us that takes roosters to rehome). Since this is a stray and we don't really have any emotional attachment to him, that might be the better option, but we're undecided still. At least they could get him proper vet treatment.

Take him to the shelter and see if they’ll at least take a look. You probably don’t have to surrender him if you don’t want to. A lot of rehab places do have medical experience though.

 

[LizzzyJo]

I’ve known cases where people have stabbed things into animals OR the animal accidentally hurt itself with a foreign body and after weeks or months the skin and muscle grew around it and tightened it. I would go with quill that was implanted months ago and has since fused. Trim it, but don’t pull it out. The less outside room the quill has, the better. Any movement inside his body probably hurts the little guy.

 

[azygous]

An option not yet discussed but touched on by @LizzzyJo is to cut the thing off at the skin level and let it be.

This is an option sometimes chosen by first responders to accident victims that have been impaled by a wooden stake or arrow shaft. It relieves the pain of having the thing leveraged against his nerve endings when it hits against something. He's obviously functioned all right so far, and nothing further needs to be done.

 

[Fishychix]

Do we have an update?

 

[Cheltaran]

Update: So we had yet another feel of the thing. When we were inspecting it we could feel that there was some give in it, and once it came out a tiny bit we could feel the end of it inside him. Definitely NOT attached.

We decided to remove it. It came out fairly easily, and the roo was calm the whole time, didn't see to cause him much pain coming out. No blood at all! Though we still bathed the wound in antibacterial wash anyway, and will do that twice a day for the next week just in case. He's walking around as normal, eating, drinking, chasing the hens. Doesn't seem to be any worse the wear.

Here are the photos of the object. It's definitely not an echidna quill, but might be some other sort of foreign body? It still has characteristics of bone, except the colour. It's about 11cm long, which is 4.3 inches! I've added a line in some of the pics to show where it was stuck up to. The end that was inside him is the dark end, which is 5-6cm (2-2.5 inches). The shorter end is the part that was on the outside. Crazy! Still have no idea what the thing is.

 

[Trisseh]

Looks like a stick/piece of wood. Haha. Pictures are hard to go by. it’s probably just discoloured cuz it’s been stuck in his neck! Great that you were able to get it out with relatively little trouble. I’m sure it’ll be a lot more comfortable for him without it.

 

[Cheltaran]

Here he is, weird object free and seems happy.

 

[Spikeandbean]

Wow, thank you for the update. I'm so relieved! Good on you for looking after this guy.