Rooster gashed my hen.

[haychick23]

Hi yall, my poor Brahma girl got gashed by my rooster. (he’s going, that IS my final straw.) I’ve noticed within the last 3 days she was acting very off, i feel like crap for not noticing sooner and i really don’t know how i missed it. She’s just very fluffy & by luck i seen it when i went to check on them last night bc the rain had wet her enough that is showed me EXACTLY where she was hurt when i checked on them.
She’s been laying with my silkies in their run for the last two days, but because of this she had dried caked dirt in the wound. I cleaned it out the very best that i could(betadine,saline,dawn dish soap) and got as much out that i could. But tbh, ive worked in the vet field, but i work with reptiles, it’s very different trying to work on your own pet with no help, i really don’t know what im doing. i dont know if ive made the wound worse, i dont know if what im doing is even correct.
I tried to clean the best i can and honestly it looks MUCH better. but i put a crap ton of silver honey on overnight and put her in my room.
How do i clean the rest of the dirt out? it was super super dried like mud.
The wount itself isn’t super bad, i’ve seen much worse in my fb groups. but shes my favorite hen and im devasted for her. The skin is pulled open and im not sure if she’ll need stitches or glue or what i can even do
i’m sorry for rambling ive gotten no sleep, i will post a picture after i let my chickens out

 

[FrostRanger]

So far you're handling things well. You can attempt to soak the area in warm water to get it cleaner if it won't stress her out too much. Once you post a picture of the wound we can advise you from there

 

[haychick23]

So far you're handling things well. You can attempt to soak the area in warm water to get it cleaner if it won't stress her out too much. Once you post a picture of the wound we can advise you from there

thank you for the reply! This is the best picture i can get :/
it looks worse than i thought originally, what really is causing me to not want to go too deep to clean is i really don’t know what is skin and what’s not. I’ve cut a bit of feather out of the way, the circled area is where her skin has a majority of the dried dirt. (the white is silver honey, the yellow is betadine) Where it’s circled in red, the bottom of the wound, the feathers around there look like they have dead skin or something i’m really not sure, but i don’t want to cut her skin accidentally.
I’ve seen very very bad wounds on facebook groups & they help pretty well without vet intervention. I will of course not hesitate to take her to the vet but the cost is so dang expensive where i live. Will this need stitches? would i be able to do that myself? i really cant tell if her skin is pulled away from the left side, if its just a hole, or really even what im looking at. i feel absolutely terrible that i dont know what to do.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No stitches required, they would just pull out. And don't feel bad that you don't know what to do, nobody does the first time they deal with this. Take a deep breath, you'll get through this.

Mix up a batch of sterile saline solution and put it in a spray bottle. Boil a quart of water. Add two teaspoons of salt and a pinch of baking soda. Mix or shake well. Let it cool. Use that to thoroughly spray the wound. This will cleanse the wound without scrubbing. You'll do this twice a day.

Next, gob a wad of triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. Something like Neosporin. Make sure it's the Original formula, that does not have pain reliever added. Pain reliever is said to be toxic to chickens. Finally, spray with Veterycin gel. You can get this at a feed store but no worries if you don't have it. It helps keep the wound moist and clean.

Don't cover the wound. Make sure flies can't get to her. Feed her her regular feed and make sure she has clean water and grit. Don't let the other hens peck her. This should heal just fine in about 2-3 weeks. Good luck!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Oops, I forgot to say to gently blot dry after spraying with the saline, before using the antibiotic ointment.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You can clip away more feathers too, they'll just get greasy from the ointment.

 

[haychick23]

No stitches required, they would just pull out. And don't feel bad that you don't know what to do, nobody does the first time they deal with this. Take a deep breath, you'll get through this.

Mix up a batch of sterile saline solution and put it in a spray bottle. Boil a quart of water. Add two teaspoons of salt and a pinch of baking soda. Mix or shake well. Let it cool. Use that to thoroughly spray the wound. This will cleanse the wound without scrubbing. You'll do this twice a day.

Next, gob a wad of triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. Something like Neosporin. Make sure it's the Original formula, that does not have pain reliever added. Pain reliever is said to be toxic to chickens. Finally, spray with Veterycin gel. You can get this at a feed store but no worries if you don't have it. It helps keep the wound moist and clean.

Don't cover the wound. Make sure flies can't get to her. Feed her her regular feed and make sure she has clean water and grit. Don't let the other hens peck her. This should heal just fine in about 2-3 weeks. Good luck!

thank you so much for you kind and informative reply!
I bought everything you said and i’m going to try again and re clean it that way.
her feathers from the betadine are a bit stiff, i’m going to use dawn and clean that. how do i know what is feathers only and not skin? there’s weird patches in her feathers and i really can’t tell what they are. i don’t see any blood on it though. I’m going to post another picture here soon when i go to clean it. i really just want to make sure i got as much debris out that i can, would your mixture cause like a fizzy reaction and help with that?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No, there will be no fizzy reaction. If you are not SURE something is a feather, don't cut it. Don't cut feathers too close to the skin, just trim enough so you can see the wound better. At this point, I would not fuss with it too much trying to clean it, I would just do as described. It will heal. Trying to scrub it clean is just going to hurt her.

 

[haychick23]

No stitches required, they would just pull out. And don't feel bad that you don't know what to do, nobody does the first time they deal with this. Take a deep breath, you'll get through this.

Mix up a batch of sterile saline solution and put it in a spray bottle. Boil a quart of water. Add two teaspoons of salt and a pinch of baking soda. Mix or shake well. Let it cool. Use that to thoroughly spray the wound. This will cleanse the wound without scrubbing. You'll do this twice a day.

Next, gob a wad of triple antibiotic ointment on the wound. Something like Neosporin. Make sure it's the Original formula, that does not have pain reliever added. Pain reliever is said to be toxic to chickens. Finally, spray with Veterycin gel. You can get this at a feed store but no worries if you don't have it. It helps keep the wound moist and clean.

Don't cover the wound. Make sure flies can't get to her. Feed her her regular feed and make sure she has clean water and grit. Don't let the other hens peck her. This should heal just fine in about 2-3 weeks. Good luck!

is this mixture the “saline solution” that i am making, or am i adding saline to this as well? sorry for all the questions, i just want to make sure im doing everything correctly. thank you for your help so far.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Adding saline to what? Saline solution is a quart of water with 2 tsp. table salt and a pinch of baking soda. Boil the water first and let it cool. Use it in a spray bottle to flush the wound, just spray the wound several times to cleanse it. Don't mix it with anything. Blot dry with a clean towel.

Then cover the wound with Neosporin.

Then, if you have it, spray with Veterycin spray gel.

Then leave her alone.

Do this twice a day.

Give her her regular food and fresh clean water to drink, and a little dish of grit.

That's it.