What to know about chicken pus

[PNWskye]

And thank you for your reply - I truly think it is puss - it has consistency of scrambled eggs - well done.

Any updates?

 

[Goldhillacres]

Also, please tell us when the injury occurred. That has bearing on what stage we would expect the healing process to be in. For example, a fresh wound would appear much different than a wound at three weeks.

Old thread but helpful, found an old wound on leg of hen likely from dog bite. Do I scrape the puss out? It’s hard and securely lodged. I’ve removed portions of scab that would easily dislodge and disinfected. It’s swollen and she’s limping. Didn’t expect puss to be so hard/solid.

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[azygous]

That particular location, if I'm correct in reading the photos, is the front of the tibia and notoriously difficult to heal. The common cause of that injury is often a perch that is too high, causing a chicken to miss and hit the perch with the lower tibia. I have two roosters that have injured themselves in this way. When I discovered the injuries, I lowered the perch to within a few inches from the floor.

Treating the injury involves daily soaks in Epsom salts and debriding until you get all the pus out. An oral antibiotic is necessary most of the time because infection almost always involves the bone, having little tissue to protect it.

Cephaexin is the best antibiotic for bone infection and you can order it here without a prescription as long as you are in the US and not residing in a state that makes it illegal to order it. https://www.kvsupply.com/Search.aspx?query=aqua-ceph The dose is 250mg for two to three weeks, depending on how well it's healing.

 

[Goldhillacres]

That particular location, if I'm correct in reading the photos, is the front of the tibia and notoriously difficult to heal. The common cause of that injury is often a perch that is too high, causing a chicken to miss and hit the perch with the lower tibia. I have two roosters that have injured themselves in this way. When I discovered the injuries, I lowered the perch to within a few inches from the floor.

Treating the injury involves daily soaks in Epsom salts and debriding until you get all the pus out. An oral antibiotic is necessary most of the time because infection almost always involves the bone, having little tissue to protect it.

Cephaexin is the best antibiotic for bone infection and you can order it here without a prescription as long as you are in the US and not residing in a state that makes it illegal to order it. https://www.kvsupply.com/Search.aspx?query=aqua-ceph The dose is 250mg for two to three weeks, depending on how well it's healing.

Thank you so much! The perch is about 15 inches from floor of coop, but I hadn’t considered that scenario. The injury is on the inside of fibia, I’m holding bird while she’s laying on her side. I ordered what you suggested, that makes sense. It’s about a week out, so I hope she makes it! Any benefit in scraping wound at this point to remove the deep scab with puss, or is that ship sailed? I’ll keep cleaning it.

 

[Goldhillacres]

Thank you so much! The perch is about 15 inches from floor of coop, but I hadn’t considered that scenario. The injury is on the inside of fibia, I’m holding bird while she’s laying on her side. I ordered what you suggested, that makes sense. It’s about a week out, so I hope she makes it! Any benefit in scraping wound at this point to remove the deep scab with puss, or is that ship sailed? I’ll keep cleaning it.

Oh, you answered that. Debriding is a new term for me. Love all the learning with chickens!

 

[azygous]

Veterinary science all is in agreement that debridement in animals is the best way to treat wounds. You will need to access the pus by making small incisions at four corners and pushing the pus out.

What I would do is soak and do the initial debridement, put triple antibiotic ointment over it and bandage with a non-stick pad over the wound held in place with Vetrap. Wait two days and check the wound. If it's flat and appears to be healing, put more ointment on it and rebandage.

If it appears to be still swollen with pus, do another debridement. Repeat every two days until the wound appears to be starting to heal, but keep the wound ointment on it each day.

Resign yourself to this taking weeks, maybe months to heal. My rooster's wound has been healing for three months and is still not all the way there.

 

[jewelbabyone]

I'm battling the puss - I have removed it a couple times now and wonder if I'm doing the right thing? My boy had fly strike - I think he had a puncture wound underneath between his legs that I didn't know about and then the flies attacked. I noticed him acting funny and he stank....I turned him upside down and found the wound. It was full of maggots, fairly deep and large. I cleaned the wound and used tweezers to remove all the maggots I could reach. Soaked in dawn soap and Epsom salt several times, sprayed vetricyn several times a day and kept in a clean tub away from flies etc. He took antibiotics for about 5-6 days (until he quit eating the eggs or liverwurst I put the powder in). He eats and drinks find. and lets me treat him alright. But, I just wonder if I should leave it alone - its been about 3 weeks now....every time I remove the puss it comes back....that's why I wonder if it is a normal part of the healing process. I cannot find much info about this issue.....I'm really shooting in the dark here. The pictures I included are from yesterday, I noticed it was looking like it had a lot of puss build up again. I soaked him to soften it and peeled part of it away....this is what it looks like. Peeling it open I can spray the Vetricyn inside but should I remove it all again? Does this actually protect the wound? Is it a normal healing process? The wound is about 1.5-2 inch diameter. I've been treating him 3-4 weeks now.

I see this is an old post. But, I’ve got a rooster dealing with the exact same thing. He had a wound on his back, that had a “cap of pus,” I pulled it off, cleaned the wound. But the yellow stuff keeps coming back. What did you end up doing? This has been going on a couple weeks for me already. This is the only article I’ve seen that has the same
Texture pus as my guy!

 

[jewelbabyone]

I’ve got a rooster that had a wound on his back. At first I thought he had just been pooped on. But, after cleaning him I realized it was a wound with a thick buildup of pus. I cleaned it, and have been cleaning it daily with hibaclense and putting neosporin no pain relief on it. I’ve also sprayed it with betray in, and or blue kote. It keeps getting this yellow buildup, is this pus still or new tissue?

 

[azygous]

That could be a cancer. I've had two chickens with that, so that's what it looks like to me. That's a common place for a chicken to get it. Any wound that appears not to be healing is often a cancer. No, there is no cure.

 

[jewelbabyone]

That could be a cancer. I've had two chickens with that, so that's what it looks like to me. That's a common place for a chicken to get it. Any wound that appears not to be healing is often a cancer. No, there is no cure.

Thank you. I hadn’t even thought of that, I kept telling myself staph infection. He’s a one year old that we incubated from our first set of chickens. He’d been perfect up to the last few weeks. ;(