Three month old chick with abdomen injury (Graphic pictures later)

[EetMorCow]

One of my 3 month old chicks was attacked by the others hens and received a gash on her lower abdomen. There were about two inches on intestines sticking out. There is a small wound on the intestine. We laid her down and covered up her head with a towel to calm her down, poked everything back in and stitched up the wound. She is in a dog crate in the house now. I am a little concerned about the wound on the intestine. It did not appear to be all the way through since there wasn't a lot of nasty stuff coming out of it. It was oozing a little but that could have jest been blood. Not having anything other than regular sewing stuff, I did not want to try to stitch the intestine wound up and leave the stitches in there. We had not planned on feeding her for a few days, just water, but I saw another thread mention applesauce and yogurt. I was worried about stressing the intestine wound but then I guess chickens aren't known for a real solid poop.

I was planning on going to the feed store for chicken feed anyway. I guess I need to see if they have a real suture kit. I am wondering if there is anything else I can do. If I should have stitched up the wound on the intestines using a dissolvable suture, it would probably be best to open it back up sooner rather than later. If anyone wants to share their experience with something like this and how it turned out, it would be appreciated.

I'll post pictures in a separate post so at least they aren't smacking you in the face when you open this thread.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Folly's place]

Abdominal wounds are veterinary visit material, or euthanasia immediately. Mary

 

[EetMorCow]

I'll put the pictures in reverse order.

Stitched up.




The skin wound.




The initial problem. Note the little wound on the intestine.

 

[EetMorCow]

Update. She didn't survive the night.

 

[newmarch2014]

I am sorry that happened. This is my fear right now as my bigger hens are being bullies at roosting time to my new 4 month olds.

 

[EetMorCow]

After thinking about it, we are beginning to think that the wound might not have been caused by the other hens but by the rooster. This is based on it not being a skin tear so much as a much neater hole. Up until recently, the chicks were kept in a separate run and we let the adults and youngsters out into the yard at different times. But lately, we have been letting them out together to get them used to each other. That was going pretty well. The usual pecking but when there were scraps thrown out for them, the youngsters would be right there, stealing whatever they could. They seemed to be tolerated. We thought to go to the next stage and move the youngsters into the main coop and onto the perches late at night. The next day, we noticed that the youngsters stayed in their pack, under the coop and the others didn't really mind them being there in the run. We had both noticed that the rooster had approached them but didn't witness anything aggressive. He might have tried to mount the youngster and spurred her. Another reason I don't think it was the other hens is that they were not focused on her, like I've seen before. I've had a hen with a skin tear before and the other hens just kept after her, driving her into a corner and continuing to pick on her. Just from looking at the flock, with the youngsters under the coop, you would not have thought anything was wrong. When my wife actually got down to look at them, she noticed the problem.

Thanks to some other threads here, the rooster's spurs are now a little duller. The remaining youngsters will be isolated again, except for yard time for a few more months.