Wound with maggots and bad smell

[smwoodie]

What percentage of hydrogen proxide do you use?

 

[smwoodie]

Also, when cleaning the maggots off, I have been just using the water hose outside. Is that ok, or do I need to use warm water?

 

[smwoodie]

I am correcting myself. I just reread several of the posts, and I if I use screw worm spray, I shouldn't have to rinse the bird to get rid of the maggots.

I appreciate all of your wisdom and advice. I really don't want to lose this bird. I do believe it was a dog who got a hold of her.

thank you and God bless!!

 

[Billy7871]

We actually saved a bird like this. Three horses helped with advice too and since I was a newbie to maggots in a chickens hiney and had little help. This is what I did and it really worked. I could not afford a vet and she needed help right then.

I got a large bucket of some sort and filled it with water from the hose and dawn dish detergent.

I dunked her hiney in the solution many times and (with gloves on ...germ freak) kind of washed off like I had a washcloth but didn't. (you get the idea) Had to get someone to help me hold while I "washed". But I am sure she would have let me I was just nervous. I did NOT wash her to get rid of the maggots but to clean up all the gookie stuff in the way and to let me be able to see the wound better. If you can see it you wouldn't have to wash I suppose.

I used the screwworm spray that I got from Tractor Supply for about $7 and while wet sprayed her hiney. It is for horses I think but says you can use on chickens. She did not move when sprayed and you could see the maggotts just falling out of her.

Later when she had dried a bit I retreated just to be sure.

The next day...I used bluekote on her wound (also from TSC for $5). I applied it everyday for a week. They sell it in pump and aerosol. I used pump as I thought the aerosol would sting.

She recovered completely and even laid an egg eventually. She was many different colors and we told people that she was from the carnival. I have a picture but I think it would embarass my family if I posted it.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
You should get rid of the maggots first, then use screw worm spray. The spray is to prevent further maggots and repel flies. (Sorry it was confusing.) That's where smothering them out comes in handy. In cases where I found birds with them, I've used diluted hydrogen peroxide because it hurts the maggots - even if this was a second use of the hydrogen peroxide. Basically I do whatever it takes to get them out.

You can use a garden hose. I used syringes on a truck bed's tailgait (easy to hose off), a plastic table (easy to hose off), bathtub (easy to rinse out and bleach), etc. You don't have to use warm water then -just try to keep the water to the area of the wounds, and then once you're done reclean with the iodine/water or nolvasan/water. Don't rinse in the case of iodine/water, do in the case of nolvasan/water (I do anyway). Pat dry, redress, *then* spray with the wound spray.

I personally feel squeamish using it right on the bare skin. I like an antibiotic ointment there as the heat of the body melts the ointment into the skin over time, provides a barrier. The screw worm spray on top kills and repels (as I mentioned before).

In one case where I had a goose who was thoroughly ripped up by dogs and required my very very rare case of stitches, I sprayed his bandages lightly - that way if his wounds seeped and I wasn't there, it wouldn't attract flies. On another (same batch of geese) I sprayed on top of the dressed wound. It was in a place that I couldn't bandage.

Maggots are usually a one-time thing, sometimes twice, but that's why the 2 days of letting the wound dry on top really helps. Then that moisture (and smell, for flies) is reduced. It gets easier after the third day, I promise!

Billy: I'm very glad my advice helped. Am I an oldie to maggots then? LOL Well I supposed I am as I've seen many cases of them. Gulf coast Texas is just heaven to all nasty bugs.

 

[smwoodie]

Thank you all for your advice. Threehorses, thank you so much for replying and all the detail you have given me. Our Brahma chicken did not make it. She had wounds all over on her right side from her wing to the tail end and when I went to give her an antibiotic shot in the breast I found that it had been torn open 4" exposing all her breast muscle and was full of maggots. I will tuck all you advice away for when I will need it once again. This has been quite an experience, one that I was not prepared for. Thank you and God Bless!!

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Ohhh my goodness, how awful.

I'm very very sorry to hear she was so dreadfully injured. I hope you *never* have to use my advice again, but it's there if you should.

What an awful night. Bless you for trying anyway.

Do take care. /hugs

 

[bzchickens]

Wow. A very thorough and extremely helpful article. Thank you. I have a severely injured rooster. He has a palm sized open wound under his wing that may have been there for days. This information will help a great deal. Thank you.

 

[AnimlCrakrAcres]

Yes, I am glad they keep posts like this up. Three of my chickens got injured by a dog a few days ago. One of them had a large but not deep gash that my husband acually superglued together and she is doing fine (I almost fainted when he started gluing- I didn't know they even use superglue on people in emergency cases). One of them had one deep but not very large punture wound near the tail, he is in the house and I am cleaning the wound and using the ointment and it looks good. The other one I am having some problems with. She has some heavy damage down her side and back, under her wing and unto her saddle. I had to cut nearly half her feathers off to expose/ clean the whole area. Its a lot of scrapes and small punture wounds. I was covering it so she wouldn't mess with it but it started to smell bad so I let it air out. She is eating and drinking fine and alert but the skin looks kind of greenish.

Do you think this is brusing or something worse? If there was an infection wouldn't she be acting funny? She acts like nothing is wrong, doesn't even fuss when I'm trying to clean the area. Not in a 'catatonic' kind of way, just in a 'whatever' kind of attitude she usually has when I handle her( shes a very laid back girl).

 

[Tentoumushi]

Thank you for a very detailed description for severe wound treatments! I have a Cayuga duck that was attacked by coyotes. She was in a large wire pen with a Pekin duck and they got on top of the cage, collapsing it and killing the Pekin. The Cayuga had the skin on the back of her neck chewed/pulled off all the way down to the muscle from the crown of her head to the base of her neck about 1 1/2" wide. I put her up where nothing could get to her after rinsing out the wound and spraying Vetricyn on it. After a couple of days it seemed to be doing better so we tried putting her in the chicken coop with her "came home from the farm supply store" mates. She seemed happy about it even getting in the small pool I fixed for her to preen in. When her chick mates took to doing a follow the leader around the run she got in line along with them. 2 days later my husband came in and said "your duck is gone, I looked every where". Knowing the male idea of "searching" I went out to look for her and found her in the coop on the floor wedged between a wire cage and a hen on a nest. I brought her into the house and started cleaning her up. I don't know if another animal attacked her or the chickens pecked her but the wound was worse.

This time I left her in the bathtub for 2 days, then put her back out in a hatching cage. Tonight I went out to check on her after I got back from Memphis. She came to me and I took her into the house and held her while Jack sprayed more Vetricyn. As I was putting her back in the cage I got a better look at the wound (broad daylight helped) and I saw several maggots inside under the edge of the skin at the point where it was ripped away. I have been searching the internet for help (it's 120 miles one way to the nearest avian vet). I will bring her in the first thing in the morning and start working on the wound as you have suggested. Then find a better way to keep her in the house. FWIW, she doesn't act like anything us wrong. She stretches her neck, preens and spreads her wings and shakes the water off all the way to get tail, quacking and waddling around. If it had happened to a human they would be moaning and screaming for pain meds! I have named her Lucky Ducky, seems appropriate ; )