paramedicaa
Hatching
- Aug 31, 2021
- 2
- 3
- 5
This is a feel good story. This is Miss Ruby. 4 y/o Gold Sex Link. One of my original girls. Apparently she’s REALLY good at hiding illness. I see my girls every day and never a hint anything was wrong until I noticed she was moving a little slow. This is what I found!!! (The red circle is the area that was all the way down to the intestines. The next larger layer was her abdominal wall, then her outer skin.) Had I not been out the door for a 12 hour night shift, I would've culled her immediately. I soaked her in a warm bath to get as many maggots off as I could. I put her in a warm crate a prayed she’d be alive come morning. I got home and she was still with us. I had a talk with her and we decided to fight this. I soaked her again in a warm tub in the morning (picture) to drown as many maggots as I could. I would empty the tub and refill with clean water multiple times until no more maggots came off of her. I also used the sprayer on the faucet to get as many off as possible. I then laid her on her back on a towel and began picking maggots off one by one. There were only about 20 left on her by this point. We then went into the bathroom and got a dry from the hairdryer. I sat her on a heating pad (on low with a thick towel on top) and let her rest. After she slept for a few hours, I gave her some oral liquids. (Look up “tube feeding chicken” on YouTube.) She understandably wasn’t interested in food, so we just focused on fluids. I had some Gatorade, which I watered down, and she drank a bunch. Then she rested some more. We did this every morning and every evening for the next 3 days until we were confident the maggots were gone. By now she was eating little bits of scrambled eggs. Still no energy to get up and more around though. I knew she needed mental healing as well, so I plopped her in front of the sliding glass door so she could see her flock. I threw scratch out on the patio in front of her. As they were pecking at it, Miss Ruby perked up and started eating her eggs. Little by little, she was gaining strength. She started to poop again. We continued baths every day for the next week and she did great. So we’ll in fact that we moved her into Chicken Step Down (from Chicken ICU). She did so well! Our routine was: epsom salt bath, dry with hairdryer, Veterycin Plus spray, then back to rest. She had water with vitamins from the pet store and her normal feed with some grub treats for extra protein. About 2 weeks into this routine, her wound was starting to heal. I researched EVERYWHERE what to do next. Some said BluKote, some said triple antibiotic. I came across one suggestion of Alushield. I throughly researched its use and decided this is what she needed. So, I gave her a bath, dried her off, and applied the spray. That was 2 weeks ago. As of this past weeks (3 weeks gone by), she is back with her flock and doing GREAT! I check her belly every day and not a single sign of issues. In fact, her feathers are coming back! I trim off the pieces of aluminum that have peeled back due to new skin growing in underneath. There is still a chunk on her belly because the skin has not full grown in there yet. When it does, it will fall off. I am so proud of Miss Ruby! She fought and I helped her as best I could. Love my little girl. 
