Sew What?

[Garden Peas]

She did live... I also had one like that, and like her, I chose not to sew it. Not because i thought it shouldn't be sewn, but because I didn't have the supplies.

Since amprolium is not an antibiotic, no script needed.

-Kathy

@PeaLover130 still tells people about the time I sewed up her chicken chick on the kitchen table. I can't remember if I used the invisible thread or the fishing line -- I just remember scavenging the house and garage for adaptable materials and dousing all my stuff with rubbing alcohol. I just used a regular sewing needle in what seemed like an appropriate size. A curved one would definitely be easier. I think I used neosporin on the chick afterwards, and probably some Bactine and some alcohol beforehand -- didn't have all the great meds I do now. It was newly hatched, cold, and its guts were hanging out. I first thought its navel hadn't closed, but when I started working on it, I discovered the navel was fine, but it had a bunch of tear & puncture wounds from the adult birds savaging it. Didn't have much yolk sac, so it may have been older than I realized at the time. I left it cold while I sewed it up, then popped it under a heat lamp. Astonishingly, it lived and grew up.

Nice medical supplies are great to have on hand... sterile ones are fantastic. In a pinch, fishing line and invisible thread are both monofilaments that lots of folks have lying around. I still remember when I was really young and one of our much older neighbors happened by and was showing my father where he had sewn himself up earlier that morning from some gardening incident. I doubt if he used anything other than sewing thread. He was born in the last century (the one that started with 18, not 19), and out of necessity, people took care of things at home then that would make our hair stand on end now. Of course, some of them died too -- my father had gangrene as a youngster in the days before antibiotics were available -- a miracle that he lived.

When I was deciding what to do with the torn up chick, I worried that sewing up the abdomen could lead to peritonitis. But it was clearly going to die without intervention, so I did what I could and by the grace of God it worked out.

 

[DylansMom]

By the time we found out our pet Turkey was injured it was too late for sewing. Her wound was a maggoty mess and the skin around the edges was falling apart. I used a scissors to trim all the dead stuff off (called "debriding" if we want to get technical), cleaned it with dish detergent in warm water and slathered SWAT all over it, maggots hate SWAT. Daily cleanings, trip. antibiotic oint. and a daily dose of enro. in scrambled eggs and she was good as new. The healing was amazing.

 

[Garden Peas]

Awesome doctoring @DylansMom ! I dunno how you got through that without tossing your cookies.

Gross trivia... At various times, maggots have been used to clean wounds, based on the fact that some (though apparently not all) maggots eat decaying flesh rather than live flesh. The original mountaineering guys coming back from Mt. Everest had toes dropping off from frostbite followed by gangrene, and maggots were used to help control the infections.

And leeches have an actual, approved medical use now -- they've gone from being disreputed medieval medicine to a niche medical tool, go figure.

Personally hoping that I never need any of their services

 

[casportpony]

http://www.lbah.com/word/avian/fractured-bird-leg/

Quote:
-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Worth reading the whole article:
ttp://www.lbah.com/word/avian/fractured-bird-leg/

-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

Awesome doctoring @DylansMom ! I dunno how you got through that without tossing your cookies.

Gross trivia... At various times, maggots have been used to clean wounds, based on the fact that some (though apparently not all) maggots eat decaying flesh rather than live flesh. The original mountaineering guys coming back from Mt. Everest had toes dropping off from frostbite followed by gangrene, and maggots were used to help control the infections.

And leeches have an actual, approved medical use now -- they've gone from being disreputed medieval medicine to a niche medical tool, go figure.

Personally hoping that I never need any of their services

I have Kathy to thank for talking me thru the doctoring. And I have a pretty strong stomach, hubby had to hold her still for the initial cleaning and he is the one that almost tossed his cookies. He wanted to put the turkey down, but our son was very attached and he wanted to try to save her. In the end I was very thankful we didn't give up on her.

 

[Garden Peas]

Going back to our list of useful medical supplies & gadgets... I am adding to my birthday "wish list" a hemostat and a nice pair of bandage scissors. Presently have a chick with a persistent toe issue -- it didn't uncurl correctly while I was out of town, and I think the chick injured the joint. Tried craft stem shoes twice, made some progress, but it reverted when the second shoe came off.

Now I'm using the same kind of splint idea that was in Kathy's video of leg splinting and what the vet used on my earlier chick with the slipped tendon -- similar to what @KsKingBee has posted pictures of for curled toes, but more substantial for this little guy. Instead of going around the circumference of the toes to attach the splint, this technique uses two flat pieces of tape, one on each side of the injured body part, and the two pieces of tape get stuck together. The tape is then compressed a bit more tightly, to bring it close to the bone that needs splinting, then the bandage is trimmed. In the video that Kathy posted, they used a hemostat to kind of crimp the tape up next to the leg.

So here, I put tape down flat on the table, sticky side up, then put a second layer of tape, sticky side down, on top, while making sure the toes were where they needed to be. Then I crimped the tape next to the toes -- but I had to use my thumbnail and the edge of the scissors. A hemostat would have been perfect for that job! Then I trimmed the tape down to the shape of the foot -- my scissors were a nuisance. I eventually got it done, but bandage scissors would have done the job much more easily. I then took some smaller pieces of tape and lapped over the cut edge to keep it from separating, trying to do it just like the vet did when she bandaged my chick with the slipped tendon. Again, bandage scissors would have made short work of it, but the school scissors left from who knows what year of elementary school were pretty frustrating

(Bandage scissors would also have been nice for getting off the stuck-together adhesive tape from the previous shoe splinting too -- I had to peel and cut that tape off before I could redo with the flat splint.)



Of course, a wriggly little peachick is not going to hold still -- I should have just vet-wrapped it while I fooled with the foot, but thought I could get it done without

What was I thinking?

Anyway, I'm hoping it's on the mend now. Leaving it for a few days this time, since it regressed before when the shoe splint came off too soon. I can see where this sort of thing will continue to come up periodically in the future, and I'm thinking the hemostat and bandage scissors will be a good addition to the first aid kit...

 

[KsKingBee]

Toothpicks. After I lay the first layer down on the table, (bandaid flexible fabric), I use a toothpick to position the toes where I want them, then I put the top layer on. One difference between us is I don't bother to cut a 'V' between the toes. My agility is receding in my age just like my hair did.

 

[Garden Peas]

Toothpicks. After I lay the first layer down on the table, (bandaid flexible fabric), I use a toothpick to position the toes where I want them, then I put the top layer on. One difference between us is I don't bother to cut a 'V' between the toes. My agility is receding in my age just like my hair did.

Toothpicks! Yes, that would definitely help in positioning the toes on the sticky tape. Bandaids would work ok on regular curly toes, I think, but this chick needed something more rigid to stabilize the toe joint. I think s/he somehow damaged the joint trying to walk on the curly toes. The inner toe kept twisting off sideways -- rotating and collapsing. Could be that the tendon holding the toe extended was dislocating. It improved with the two sets of shoes, but the little one managed to lose each set of shoes within 24 hours, and in one case, tape disappeared

I think one of the older chicks may have eaten it -- so far, no ill effects, but worrisome. This photo was early on in the treatment.



After the second set of shoes, it seemed as though it was straightened, but then it twisted off to the side again a little while later. So then I used the flat tape method, with more rigid tape. Having a hemostat to crimp the tape up close to the toe and prevent twisting would have been helpful; did the best I could with fingernails and the scissors.

The main toe was slightly curving (probably taking up the slack from the twisty toe), so I put it in the tape, extended and in the best position I could, and I didn't trim any tape between the two. I only trimmed the V between the middle and outer toes so that the chick could get a little more use out of that one, which seemed normal. I kept it in the tape for stability and to help anchor the flat tape. I left the hind toe out of the tape, and the chick is now using that one normally too.

The vet said 5 days when she taped the slipped tendon, so I am going to try 5 days for this toe issue. I do think maybe it is a toe tendon or ligament -- whatever it is that holds the toes in alignment and opens and closes them. No clue how I am going to get the tape off at the end... I suppose I will have to unpeel it. The gunky scissors aren't very good for trimming safely near the toes...

 

[Garden Peas]

Tiny's toe splint had loosened up when I checked it today, so I removed it to see whether it needed to be reapplied. The toes are looking much better. The splint has been off most of the day, and so far the toes are staying straight most of the time. The inner toe is still a bit weak, so I'm watching it closely, but it's not rolling over and collapsing at the joint now.





I'm very pleased with how the "flat" tape splinting worked, and grateful to @KsKingBee for posting his photos using bandaids to fix curled toes.

Frustratingly, one of the older chicks went down today with a slipped tendon.

Before I could get it splinted, it had rubbed the outside of the joint raw, so it was oozing. I was a little apprehensive about putting tape onto the oozing abrasion, and concerned it would become infected. I was also concerned that antibiotic ointment and just about anything I could do for the abrasion might interfere with the splinting. I finally cut out a small section of bandaid (the part that goes directly on the wound), stuck it onto the sticky tape, put a tiny dab of antibiotic ointment on it, and then put it on the leg, envelope fashion, sticky side to sticky side of another piece, positioned so the bandaid bit covered the abrasion. It's the best I can do with what I have.

I was fortunate to have a helper hold the bird -- wow did that help! -- and I tried to create the flat envelope splint the vet had applied to Chick #5, who had a slipped tendon last month. (Chick #5 is totally unrelated to this chick -- slipped tendons can just happen

) I have to say the vet had much better tape, and I'm glad she told me that sometimes they just have to build it up in layers. It really helps to have wide tape -- used 1" wide tape for the front & back of the envelope -- even wider would have been better if I had had any.





The chick was obviously more comfortable (and in less pain) as soon as the splint was on. The chick is not thrilled with the splint, but it's pretty easy to see that it feels better. So here's hoping it works!