Coat the entire wound with the Dawn right out of the bottle. It will dissolve the scab into a gooey substance after about ten or fifteen minutes. Then pop her into the bath to soak for another ten minutes or so.
The scab should be good and soft and easily scrubbed away. Do not worry if there's...
The black stuff appears to be premature scabbing. It can harbor bacteria. It should come off. Here's what you can do to soften it so it will pull away easily.
Take Dawn dish soap and use it full strength to cover the entire wound. Let it sit for ten or fifteen minutes, then give her another...
Tube feeding a chicken is about the safest most fool-proof things a chicken keeper can do. There is pretty nearly nothing that can go wrong. Even a child can do it, and this past spring, two kids on this forum successfully saved the lives of several hens in their flock by tubing a life-saving...
Straw? Hay is food. Straw is usually clean unless it's old and filthy. The purpose of daily wound cleansing is to reduce the bacteria load in and around the wound so it can heal.
You will never achieve a perfectly clean wound in chicken world. It's a balancing act. By cleaning the wound every...
The three-day Epsom salt flush can neutralize any remaining yeast in her system and flush it completely out. It requires tubing, but it's very easy to do. If you need tubing instructions, I'll provide them.
Then probiotics every day for three or four days will restore the good microbes in the...
Proper wound care often involves removing infected or dead tissue. The term for it is "debriding". You debride by using soap and water or disinfectant solution and a rough wash cloth or soft scrub brush. Bacteria lives and grows in this sort of tissue, and by removing all this loose decaying...
You will be able to tell if the wound is healing if you see a raised ridge around the outer edge. New tissue grows from the edges inward toward the center, which will be the last to close up.
People assume that once a crop disorder is treated, they're good to go. Many times the yeast is growing all the way through the digestive tract and more treatment is required.
In addition to that, crop disorders most often have an underlying cause, and if that isn't also treated (if possible)...
Wound care protocol:
1. Treat for shock as the number one step. Give warm Gatoraid or mix one teaspoon of sugar into one cup of warm water with a pinch of salt and baking soda. Have the patient drink it all or syringe it into the beak. Dip the beak to show the patient it’s sweet.
2. Flush the...
You've had some very helpful responses. I'll add my wound care protocol since those are some serious wounds. Also, you must keep her confined away from the others for her safety. As @WingItRanch pointed out, the injured victim's displays of vulnerability, just as much her bloody wounds, can...
Do you have a source for baby chicks? That would be the best way to replenish your flock with the least amount of friction. Chickens will accept chicks before they will adult chickens.
The best way to integrate the new chicks would be to set up a brooder where Fitty lives. That way she can bond...
All of us learn from every thread that is posted here. So updates are important to us all.
This website is a wealth of learning experience that benefits us all, and people in the future will be learning from your thread after we are gone.
Just keep an eye on them. As long as they're getting enough food and water, there's no problem. But we won't know for a while if this is the beginning of something problematic or if it's just a quirk. Watch for any changes in eating and drinking habits and general behavior.
This sounds like a Buckmoth caterpillar sting. You have them in your area. I have them here where I am, as well, and I've had my chickens suffer from their stings. I lost three six-week old chicks when they pecked at them. These caterpillars have nasty spines that have venom, and if your hen...
I used to be a huge proponent of fermented feed. I felt the natural probiotics it generated were worth all the trouble. I kept two alternating buckets going in my kitchen at all times. Then I got sick and decided to cut it out as it took extra time and energy that I was seriously short on.
The...
Not in my flock. But chickens do possess individual "style".
To be safe, feel with your fingers around the throat to be sure nothing is obstructing it. Feel a chicken who is drinking the conventional way for comparison.
Going through the TextEdit worked. It means a few more steps, but it beats composing the text from scratch. Thanks!
I'm still curious as to why I can't paste from the mail folder as I've been doing for nearly two decades.
I use my mail drafts folder to store a lot of the stuff I want to have handy to paste onto posts that I make to threads here. I go to that folder and copy the text I want to use, and then I have always just pasted it to my comment. Never had a problem doing that before.
I use Firefox browser...
The aggravating part is that this was not an issue one week ago. Now it is. What has changed? Has there been a site tech monkeying with the coding? It appears not to be able to read my material and decode it for posting to the site.
There. Now you know what's wrong. Go fix it.
I wish it were...