Ruptured hernia

[summermom]

Olive, thank you for the clarity as well as gentleness of your post. I'll show your post to my husband when he wakes up and hopefully that will make him agree to kill her. Unfortunately I am not up for killing a chicken at this hour of the night. (It is almost 1:00 a.m. here) But tomorrow morning that's what needs to happen.

Incidentally, I just graduated from nursing school, and knowing some about the post-surgical treatment of humans and the likely outcome is what made me say I wanted her put down in the first place. It was only the fact that my neighbor (who has chickens and ducks herself, loves animals, used to be a vet tech and who did the stitching for us) didn't seem to think any anesthetic was necessary, that made me wonder if chickens have a different pain threshold or if it is just that it is a different way of manifesting pain. My husband said that when he found her today she was standing very still and shaking her head, but not making a sound. And this is a girl who is usually quite vocal.

We have only 3 chickens (we had 4 but one got killed in June by some critter that climbed our 9 foot fence) so I feel like I know my girls pretty well, but this one is my favorite. I've always saved the best tidbits for her and made sure she gets them instead of the others - maybe because of her "invalid" status. I am so sad that I will never see her running up to the gate of our yard when she heard my car, or running up to me when she heard me call.

 

[allieloveschickens]

poor girl, I have to agree that putting her down would be for the best and I am usually all for rescue attempts. If you can't put her down tonight you can help her pain a little by crushing one baby aspirin into one cup of water and then using a dropper/syringe to drip the water on the side of her beak which will make her swallow it. I am very sorry that this happened to your girl

 

[summermom]

Imp, thank you for those links, especially that #16! I had tried to search earlier but was probably too frazzled to enter the right search terms.

Okay, any suggestions as to how to get some fluid down her? Syringe? Or just leave her vitamin-electrolyte-water bowl in with her and let her drink on her own?

Edited to add: Thanks Allie! I was trying to figure out how to get the aspirin down her!

 

[auto5man]

terrible story, so sorry you are having to go through this!

 

[summermom]

Uggghhhh. She won't open her beak even a teeny bit, so the syringe is just dripping onto her feathers, And she was practically sitting in the water bowl so I took it out because I don't want her getting wet again. I don't know what's worse - getting chilled or dehydration. I'm going in favor of keeping her warm.

All I know is that the next time I have an Australorp with a hernia (in my limited experience with other Australorps, I've noticed they seem to be prone to them), I'm going to leave her alone to do her thing, until she starts bleeding/ripping and then I am going to put her down immediately. This should have been done yesterday.

But it is so unfair - she's so young - she's only 2 and a couple of months. She's such a good layer, and otherwise so healthy - she should have lived for so many more years.

 

[chkn]

You know what you can do is use a dropper with some water and a splash of gatorade. If you don't have gatorade, you need a touch of something else tasty (cherry jello, maybe some cool aid). Drip it on top of her beak a drop or two at a time, wait a moment and repeat. The thing is, the water naturally flows around the beak and down into the mouth. All she has to do is swallow. When she does, you'll see her beak move. Keep doing this for as long as she continues swallowing. Trust me on this.

Listen, there have been some horrific injuries here. If you give her antibiotics, she should be okay provided the organs weren't damaged. While you were in there, did you happen to notice why she was so huge? I think you should give her a chance anyway. Make sure you keep little bits of easy things to eat, like left over cooked green beans (my little problem hen right now loves the canned green beans). I give her a fresh egg yoke with green beans and cut up grapes. She likes a little potato. I mushed up some of my left over home made fries.

You've gone this far, you might as well give her a chance.

 

[chkn]

Congratulations on completing the nursing program! This is your first challenge as a nurse. Unless this is some type of meat bird, you should try and help this hen survive. You're going to have all kinds of things come up like this so you might as well give it your best shot so you can learn something from it. Far to many hens will be lost. Besides, you know these little chickies always want to live to see another day. They don't ask for much but they do enjoy their lives.

 

[chkn]

I wanted you to see this story from Gnarlington:

Hello, I just wanted to post a message about my experience with healing a very injured chicken. One day our dog got a hold of one of our Pullets and by the time we got to her she had a 2" X 3" piece of skin missing from her side. That's pretty big for a small pullet! The injury was only to the skin except for a few small puncture wounds that were in the muscle underneath. At this point she had a couple organs exposed including her crop but nothing was ruptured. I cleaned her wounds with saline solution, dried the area, dabbed triple antibiotic ointment over the whole area (mostly around the skin edge) and covered it with a dry sterile bandage. I wrapped her in a towel and held her whenever I could over the next two days. For the first two nights I actually put her in bed next to me wrapped in the towel. For the next week I kept her in the house so she did not feel alone. Chickens need a lot of comfort and support directly after serious trauma. For the first few days she mostly lay on her side and had her eyes closed. Luckily she was still able to eat during her entire recovery. I fed her eggs and yogurt for the first few days, then back to her normal diet of soaked & sprouted organic corn, oats & peas. I also added a little powdered antibiotic to her water. Once she could stand I released her from the towel and put her in a tall cardboard box lined with hay and a window screen on top so no flies could lay eggs on her open wound. I changed her bandage and hay once a day for the first 4 days and then removed the bandage completely to let it air heal. After a few more days she was doing very well and could not wait to get out of the box. I made her a little t-shirt out of an old sleeve from long sleeved cotton shirt to keep the flies off which she wore for the next couple weeks and put her out in one of the chicken tractors with a buddy to keep her company. Once she was all dried up and healing well, i removed her little shirt and put her back in the main chicken house. I still cant believe what she survived. She now is probably the strongest, most vibrant bird that we have. She is first out of the chicken house in the morning and last in at night, always energetically foraging and easily able to jump her height for a treat. She has earned her name, Wonder Woman. Hope this little story helps anyone in the same situation that is wondering what to do.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=422242

 

[mons02035]

I would hate to be in this situation and I hate to ask this question here but if this were to happen to a person who does not have the set up to kill their chickens. What is the best way for someone to put them down.

 

[iajewel]

you don't need a set up to kill a chicken. and if their gutts are hanging out, its my guess she will be dead soon anyway expecually if you let her suffer untill morning.

If you have a knife, you slit the throat, they will flop, they are not hurt, they are bleeding out. Hold the wings and it will be over sooner the if the guts are dragging the ground. When I butcher I take a pearing knife and open the mouth of the bird. In an upward motion you can enter the mouth and pierce the brain. That way they are brain dead when the throat is slit. This is my prefrance. you can also put a broom over the neck, stand on it and pull. I don't see you doing that, try bleeding her out. I would hope you do this befor going to bed letting her suffer through the night and doing it in the morning at your convenience.