Rooster With Badly Infected Wound! UPDATE: Spice died last night :*(

[tinychicky]

please help me! about a month ago, i noticed my spangled oegb rooster was limping slightly. i checked him over an found a giant scab on his left thigh; i have no idea how or when he got it....i never noticed any bleeding/limping etc. the wound was a little swollen but not too bad. he had no other visible wounds. i gave him a bath to clean everything up and make it more managable and put him in a clean cage in the basement. for about a week i applied neosporin twice a day and for a little while it was looking better, but not anymore. when i went down to feed him this morning i found that he could no longer walk properly; he just hobbled around on his hock. his entire thigh is enourmously swollen up, two or three times it's normal size. the skin around the wound is a pale, sickly yellow all up and down his leg. he does have interest in food and water. his comb is pale and shrivled as are his wattles and his face is very pale. he lost his spurs around the same time as i noticed the wound in the first place (courtesy of a few of my other roosters who i no longer have) and the stubs are also a little swelled up and blackened. the strange thing is that the wound does seem to be healing, albeit, slowly, but the skin around the scab it new and pink and shiny. please please help, i don't know what to do for him! obviously just letting him rest for a while so it can heal itself is not going to work. i've already lost four chickens this year and i'm not ready to lose another. i do have a vet who will treat chickens, but it would be expensive, so if there is something i can do at home, that would be best. oh, i should also add that he was recently treated along with the rest of the flock for an outbreak of worms and he doesn't seem to have quite recovered from that yet, no doubt due to his injury. they were treated with Wazine 17. i think that is the only medication he's had since his injury. let me know if i missed something... please, does anyone have any advice for me?

 

[Tam'ra of Rainbow Vortex]

Wish I could help! All my wounded birds healed up with just bathing and invisible bandage spray. If the wound appears to be healing, it might just be that he's depressed. My roo got torn up terribly in a dog attack and even though he was really bad off, after seeing the way he behaved in the hospital wing (grow out pen) we decided he would be emotionally better off with the rest of the flock. He healed up with no trace of scarring, even though he started out with a limp, only 3/4 of his skin intact, and missing 1/3 of his feathers. He looked near death, now you'd never know it!
Best of luck.

 

[tinychicky]

i'm sure he is depressed, he's lived with other chickens his whole life, but his wound is getting much worse. he used to be able to walk but now he can't. do i need to drain his swollen leg? should a vet do that?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

The wound has almost certainly abscessed or gone septic. Yes, take him to a vet. He needs to be on baytril and to have the wound thoroughly cleaned out of all infectious material. Hope he can be saved.

 

[tinychicky]

okay, i'll see what i can do. for now, what will make him more comfortable here?

 

[tinychicky]

bad news, my mom doesn't want me to take him to the vet.

she thinks he's fine but he's not! he looks like he's dying! please what can i do for him? i just lost his two brothers to a dog, i don't want to lose him too.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Okay, first, you need to respetfully express your concern over his health to your mother. Ask her to come look over his wounds with you, and point out the reasons you are concerned. The reason she might not want to take him to the vet could be that she does not realize that the wound is not healing properly, or that she is concerned about the expense. If the later, you can get an exacto knife, sterilize it and lance the wound. Thoroughly clean out all pus and infection. Then thoroughly irrigate it with diluted povidone iodine. You really want the wound to remain open and heal from the inside out, so make sure that the incision you make is large enough. Fill the wound with neosporin or a similar topical antibiotic.

From the feed store, get injectible penicillin, syringes & needles. I believe if you search here on BYC you can find the correct dose--might check to see if any of threehorses (Natalie Ross) posts give the dose--it is likely, and she is very knowledgeable on medical care for chickens.

You will want to continue daily irrigation of the wound and applying topical antibiotic until it heals.

Good luck!

 

[TeamChaos]

I was reluctant to cut open my chicken's wound, so for several sessions I soaked her in a warm tub and then cleaned the wound- with a bright light and plenty of clean wash cloths, I cut all the feathers away from the surrounding area and then gently scraped off all of the dead tissue (grey/ green looking) with a sterile scalpel (bought at ace hardware), when I was done I coated it in a product called vetricyn which is probably more expensive than a vet visit, so I'd suggest you substitute with your neosporin. I gave her injectable antibiotics also (first tylan 50, then switched to penicillin on a vet's advice).
I'm so sorry for you and your roo, best of luck!


(p.s. was he around when the brothers were attacked? might explain where he got his injury and if you're dealing with infected puncture wounds from a dog mouth, you'll have to be sure to open the scabs and flush those out!)

 

[tinychicky]

no, his brothers were attacked much later. if i'd left him in the coop until then, he would have died as well. i'll see if i can post some pictures of the wound tomorrow. he's not looking good. i though he was eating, but it turns out a mouse was stealing his food every night... i keep trying to convince my mom that what we're doing isn't enough, but she doesn't believe me

 

[tinychicky]

on second thought, here. it's hard to see in some of the pictures, but the skin is bright yellow around the scab, and while the scab looks solid and healing, his whole leg is very swollen and infected. he's listless and he can no longer walk very well and when i checked him last, i think he had a fever

i hope the pictures help.