Yesterday I was shoveling and her head bump got nicked (there was a small scab there from the other hen pecking there I assume) and it started to bleed a terrifying amount. We tried everything staunch it -corn starch, a stop bleeding spray, finally after running to the store a second time and holding her in my lap I managed to control the bleeding with StopBleed from CVS. When it first started bleeding I sprayed wirh Vetericyn spray and put manuka honey on it but not sure if any of it stayed. I assumed that the hematoma was the cause for all the bleeding which is why it was hard to stop. The incident happened at 5 and with a few intermittent stops here and there it finally coagulated around 8 or so. But we were all traumatized.
I set her up in a cage with towels and a heating pad. At the beginning of the injury she acted like nothing was wrong and was voraciously eating things we offered to distract her. But later in the night, after the bleeding stopped, she seemed stressed and we thought maybe she was in shock a bit. We fed her electrolyte water and let her sleep.
This morning she has not improved. Her crop is swollen, waterballoon-like and she is eagerly drinking electrolytes but refusing food. She has also been having very watery stools this morning, one normal Cecal poop and a very smell brown and white loose stool. Looks like some woods are still getting through. The squishy crop is strange to me. Another hen died last year of an infection and this was her main issue - a crop that wouldn’t drain, despite treatment with antibiotics and sour crop. She declined over ten days.
Wobbles was absolutely fine yesterday. More than fine. But after this bleeding event, she is suddenly with swollen crop (a bit smaller than a tennis ball) and has been sleeping all day and waking whenever we check on her for syringe feed her water drops.
Her comb is still pink as far as I can tell
Under the mess of Bleedstop powder and blood. We had already schedule a vet appointment for tomorrow to have the head bump looked at and drained so the vet will see her tomorrow. I’m too worried about traumatizing her if I try to clean her up now. I’m not too worried about infection because the cut was so small (like the size of this dash -). But hopefully vet will prescribe antibiotics.
For background. The chicken are mostly free range, forage lots of bugs and leaves and things from the garden. They have high quality layer feed available in their run and oyster shell free choice. She lays every other day and actually just laid an egg yesterday. They have never been dewormed. We have treated for Cocci twice. Once when they were small and again this past spring when a new chick was looking off. Wobbles has never had any laying problems. No other symptoms present: no eye discharge, no coughing or sneezing, her abdomen between her legs feels like it always has so no changes there. She was panting with stress last night but no longer. SmJust the squishy crop and diarrhea and lethargy after this cut on her head.
Also, she has been molting slowly over the past month or so. I first assumed mites or live and checked her over and over again but only ever saw new feather shafts, and she has patches on her wirh new shiny feathers and patches of older feathers. She never seemed bothered by the molting and continue to lay eggs without ceasing.
I wrote the vet and she thinks something systemic is going on that may or may not be related to her head bump. I’m just wondering if the trauma of the bleeding has slowed down her digestion and we can hope it’ll pick back up? Should I worm her even though I have not seen any worms in her stool? Should I treat for sour crop? We are all pretty devastated.
Posting pictures of her today and a recent stool. Also posting a picture of her head bump in July and then last week.
I set her up in a cage with towels and a heating pad. At the beginning of the injury she acted like nothing was wrong and was voraciously eating things we offered to distract her. But later in the night, after the bleeding stopped, she seemed stressed and we thought maybe she was in shock a bit. We fed her electrolyte water and let her sleep.
This morning she has not improved. Her crop is swollen, waterballoon-like and she is eagerly drinking electrolytes but refusing food. She has also been having very watery stools this morning, one normal Cecal poop and a very smell brown and white loose stool. Looks like some woods are still getting through. The squishy crop is strange to me. Another hen died last year of an infection and this was her main issue - a crop that wouldn’t drain, despite treatment with antibiotics and sour crop. She declined over ten days.
Wobbles was absolutely fine yesterday. More than fine. But after this bleeding event, she is suddenly with swollen crop (a bit smaller than a tennis ball) and has been sleeping all day and waking whenever we check on her for syringe feed her water drops.
Her comb is still pink as far as I can tell
Under the mess of Bleedstop powder and blood. We had already schedule a vet appointment for tomorrow to have the head bump looked at and drained so the vet will see her tomorrow. I’m too worried about traumatizing her if I try to clean her up now. I’m not too worried about infection because the cut was so small (like the size of this dash -). But hopefully vet will prescribe antibiotics.
For background. The chicken are mostly free range, forage lots of bugs and leaves and things from the garden. They have high quality layer feed available in their run and oyster shell free choice. She lays every other day and actually just laid an egg yesterday. They have never been dewormed. We have treated for Cocci twice. Once when they were small and again this past spring when a new chick was looking off. Wobbles has never had any laying problems. No other symptoms present: no eye discharge, no coughing or sneezing, her abdomen between her legs feels like it always has so no changes there. She was panting with stress last night but no longer. SmJust the squishy crop and diarrhea and lethargy after this cut on her head.
Also, she has been molting slowly over the past month or so. I first assumed mites or live and checked her over and over again but only ever saw new feather shafts, and she has patches on her wirh new shiny feathers and patches of older feathers. She never seemed bothered by the molting and continue to lay eggs without ceasing.
I wrote the vet and she thinks something systemic is going on that may or may not be related to her head bump. I’m just wondering if the trauma of the bleeding has slowed down her digestion and we can hope it’ll pick back up? Should I worm her even though I have not seen any worms in her stool? Should I treat for sour crop? We are all pretty devastated.
Posting pictures of her today and a recent stool. Also posting a picture of her head bump in July and then last week.
