what is wrong with the toenails?

[sydney13]

2 months ago i noticed my easter egger pullet was middle toenail on the left foot was blackish and smaller then the other nails. eventually it fell off and its been slowly growing back. i thought it was because of a injury but today i noticed now the middle toenail on the right foot is gone. instead of a hard toenail their was a squishy bloody stump on the end of the toe. has anyone ever heard of something like this? i have her crate with soft towels to sleep on and i put hydrogen peroxide on the toe. i also soaked it in epson salts and put aloe on it. do you think this will help and does anyone know what i should do for her foot? she is eating fine and i gave her some yogurt, but she just stands on one foot and has not been walking much today.

 

[welasharon]

Don't put any more peroxide on it. My vet says it can cause damage to good tissue. Any way you could put a pic of it here? That may help identify the problem.
sharon

 

[edselpdx]

What's your run and regular coop like? I've heard that chickens can really damage/tear out their nails by scratching at buried wire or fencing under a run floor. I always recommend skirting the outside of the run with wire, rather than under the flooring of the run. When my girls scratch at the ground, it's with great gusto, so I can see that movement pulling a nail if repeated on something too hard. I also agree that a picture may help, but sounds like nails are being ripped out by something (OUCH!)

Stop the peroxide, but keep it clean and consider coating with a neosporin-like ointment without any "-caine" products in it--you'll hae to wrap it with vetwrap or something similar to keep that in place, though. It will probably grow back if it's just been ripped out. If there's no current bleeding or signs/symptoms of infection (swelling, redness, drainage, stink, lethargy,) you could probably return her to the flock with some blu-kote on it.

 

[sydney13]

the run does not have any wire at the bottom and they free range most of the time so I don't think its from scratching on wire. their roost aren't to high from the ground and there is thick bedding so I also don't think it could be from jumping down. do you think it could be genetic? i find it really strange that this has happened now to both middle toes

it was bleeding pretty heavily so I used one of those dog toenail cauterizers to help stop it. I wrapped it with vet wrap to keep it clean and im going to go out and buy some neosporin. i should have a picture up soon.