Wound Care?

[Jessica1228]

Svedka is spending her 1st birthday in a dog crate. A raccoon grabbed her last night around 1 a.m. she has no feathers on her body, her head feathers look good ,and she has a few tail feathers left. She is drinking but not eating at the moment. She seems physically fine (nothing broken as far as I can tell) but not too perky at the moment.

The problem is that she has a dime-sized puncture in her hip-ish area and doesn’t want to stand on that leg. It’s that lovely chicken skin rip/ tare type and I’m not really sure what to do about it. I’ve been told that you never put an oil-based product on a bird. This would rule out an anti-biotic cream but, I was told to put said cream on an undercooked hatchling. So what’s the real deal? Should I put something on it? It that even safe? Leave it alone? I’ve seen wounds way way worse that turned out fine but I still feel like we should take some sort to wound care measures.

 

[Oven Ready]

I don't know what you can get where you are, but at a minimum Iodine the wound and surrounding area and get her on some broad spectrum antibiotics and don't let her go off her food, force feed her if neccessary, a healing hen needs plenty of food.

 

[sgtmom52]

You could flush it out with diluted Betadine (povidone-iodine) solution. You can use Neosporin Antibotic (without pain relief) on wounds, however you should not block up a puncture wound as it needs to breathe and heal from the inside out. Also this time of year you need to protect the wound from flies.

 

[Imp]

Here's some great info on wound care. Pay attention to post #16 from 3 horses. Chickens can heal some pretty incredible wounds.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=203024


Good luck,

Imp

 

[Jessica1228]

Thanks for all the info. The post by three horses really helped. I definitely printed that off for reference. I’m still slightly conflicted about the Neosporin. I’ve had many Vets tell me NEVER put an oil-based product on a bird but, if it’s the tried and true I’m all over it!

I originally washed it out with water and locked her up in the shower for the night. In the morning I went with the diluted peroxide, diluted iodine, and Neosporin (w/o pain relief). It’s on her hip but still covered by the few wing feathers she has so I left it open/ uncovered. The actual hole looks slightly larger now (quarter to 50 cent piece sized) but, the swelling has gone down and it’s started to dry out. Not sure if that’s a normal size difference but we’ve always seen some in the days fallowing. She is drinking like no other and I just now started pushing food. The switch from grit to strawberries, lettuce, and bread may have perked up her appetite. Again, thanks for leading me to the great post.