Chicken with Infection

[farmchickens]

We have just plain ol' farm chicken, that has an infection. She's not doing to good.
We noticed she's not been eating the past few days to a week, and had looked her over and found nothing. I was looking her over again tonight, and underneath her feathers, at her behind, she's got a circular hole, that is very infected.
She is running a fever I'm pretty sure(By the feel of her) and I was curious if there's any kind of Penicillan she can have?
I have Twin Pen and Pro Pen G( Both Penicillians for Goats) but don't have any other kinds. Would either of those work for her? If not, can anyone suggest anything else.
Here's some answers to the questions I saw in the emergency thread, incase I didn't cover everything:

1) What type of bird , age and weight.:
She's a Red Chicken, I think her Breed is Rhode Island Red. She's about 9 yrs. old. And regarding weight I'd make a guess she's a couple pounds.

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
Moving around very slowly, keeping butt lowered a bit to the ground more so. Not eating. Mopy.

3) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.:
The sore on her behind, that is definately infected. Her behind is raw all around the sore.

4) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
Only thing I can think of, is maybe she caught it on something. I don't know of anything else that would have caused this.

5) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Not eating for the past 5-7 days. Haven't seen her drink any either, but she has free range to the container to drink.

6) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
It's pretty normal, maybe a bit runny. No blood.

7) What has been the treatment you have administered so far? We washed it out good, and cleaned it up the best we could. That's the extent of what I knew to do, from treating goats with wounds.

8 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
I'd prefer to treat myself, versus the vet. I'm not sure if our vet would even do chickens.

9) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
I don't have a picture.

Any help would be very much appreciated!
Thanks so much,
Sharon

 

[thndrdancr]

So sorry no one has come along with answers for you, Sharon.

Since its the weekend, its rather dead in here. I DO believe terramycin (sp?) is the normal antibiotic for chickens. I think they are sensitive to some, but sorry I cant help you more.

Your chicken is really gettin up in age if she is 9 years, so I hope she can fight it off. Good luck and I will be pullin for her.

Jill

 

[eggchel]

I would put some antibiotic ointment on the wound. It should probably have some additional antibiotic treatment, but I dont know what type to recommend.

You could call your state's vet office and see what they recommend or ask if they can refer you to an agriculture extension office or a university that can help you.
Here is a link to finding your state vet if you are in the USA.

http://agr.wa.gov/FoodAnimal/AnimalHealth/StateVets.htm


chel

 

[robin416]

I haven't had to deal with this sort of problem, yet, but you had the right idea about rinsing the wound out. Using something like Betadine would be a big plus since it helps destroy bacteria and cleans at the same time. Using a syringe, without the needle, and squirting it into the hole will help flush it out better.

You can give her aspirin, a regular strength tablet to a gallon of water. The penn might be enough. I keep Auromycin and gallimycin on hand.

If she's not wanting to eat, hand feeding formula for baby birds is great to get nutrition and hydration in to a sick bird.

Flies laying eggs in the wound should be something of great concern.

 

[farmchickens]

She passed away this morning. I guess we just caught it to late.
She was still fine(acting alot better) and resting more peacefully at 1:15am, but this morning she was dead.

Thanks for all the help! I greatly appreciate it.

 

[dlhunicorn]

I would separate her... you can monitor her better... she will become easier to handle (you should flush the wound each day and apply neosporin triple AB creme...also the handfeeding formula what robin suggested is really the best but if you do not have a petstore near you to buy this then you can give a good poultry supplement (your feed store should have one>if she is not drinking sufficiently or if she is panting then you need to give her the vitamins with ELECTROLYTES...if this is not a problem get one of the general poultry vitamins like rooster booster or such)... please do offer her the live culture (so with live bifidus culture plain yogurt > not the pasteurized desert kind)> not only is this nutritional but will help her gut flora and immune system.

 

[dlhunicorn]

we must have been posting at a similar time...so very sorry to hear you lost her....