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Chickens 2023/2024

One of my girls has a bloody toe. Happened sometime over night or this morning. I’m planning on trying to clean with peroxide, treat with bacitracin and wrap with vet tape. Anyone have luck doing that? Got any other suggestions?
 
It's really hard to keep a bandage on a birds foot, but not impossible. We usually disinfect to wound with or bedadine or iodine water solution. Tea coloring is good. Let her stand in it for 1/2 hr or so. Then put her in a clean crate inside for a few days, so she isn't stepping in everyone's poop. Repeat this daily. Birds heal very quickly in the right conditions.
 
lancecolonel said:
One of my girls has a bloody toe. Happened sometime over night or this morning. I’m planning on trying to clean with peroxide, treat with bacitracin and wrap with vet tape. Anyone have luck doing that? Got any other suggestions?
Click to expand...
I've had success with vet wrap. Yiu just have to wrap it up around the leg too, which you probably already figured out.

I also keep some vet bond on hand for us and pets.
 
lancecolonel said:
One of my girls has a bloody toe. Happened sometime over night or this morning. I’m planning on trying to clean with peroxide, treat with bacitracin and wrap with vet tape. Anyone have luck doing that? Got any other suggestions?
Click to expand...

You don't need to do anything. Chickens are dumb and they will frequently lose toes. I've never treated one and we've had hundreds of chickens and dozens of lost toes.
 
My girl lost a claw(?). I have a large dog crate I use for isolation. I put her in there a couple hours ago so she could calm down. Wound bled the whole time. I just finished cleaning it with betadine pads, sprayed with wound spray, covered with gauze and wrapped with vet tape. Overkill? Probably. I’ll consider it good practice. She’s in my 3 season room with a blanket over the cage. I can tell she’s been getting picked on so I hope the respite helps.
 

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My bird with a lost toe seems to have healed up nicely. I notice fresh blood spots today and see that a different bird has 2 bloody feet. I grabbed her and can see that blood is coming from one toe but the appendage is intact, not sure why it’s bleeding. I decided to try to treat this wound with just bluekote. Despite my best efforts at neatness I now have hands that look like they belong to violette Beauregard. Who has a great way to remove bluekote that won’t destroy my skin?
 
lancecolonel said:
My bird with a lost toe seems to have healed up nicely. I notice fresh blood spots today and see that a different bird has 2 bloody feet. I grabbed her and can see that blood is coming from one toe but the appendage is intact, not sure why it’s bleeding. I decided to try to treat this wound with just bluekote. Despite my best efforts at neatness I now have hands that look like they belong to violette Beauregard. Who has a great way to remove bluekote that won’t destroy my skin?
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Belt sander.
 
My girls egg production has been up and down the last couple months. The easter egger that lost a toe hasn’t laid an egg since that happened. I’ve been getting random “wrinkled” eggs too. Wonder what causes that?
 

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Wrinkled eggs are pretty common. It's caused by muscle contractions before the egg shell has hardened. Basically the egg starts the ejection process before its done forming fully.

An injured hen may pause laying while she heals. Even just the weather changing can induce a pause, like several days of cloudy weather.
 
lancecolonel said:
My girls egg production has been up and down the last couple months. The easter egger that lost a toe hasn’t laid an egg since that happened. I’ve been getting random “wrinkled” eggs too. Wonder what causes that?
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poultrykeeper.com

Wrinkled Egg Shells

Sometimes a hen will lay an egg with a wrinkled egg shell. It's a normal egg inside, but what causes wrinkled egg shells? And are wrinkled eggs safe to eat?
poultrykeeper.com poultrykeeper.com
 
As that article mentions, sprinkling some crushed shells to boost calcium can help. We have a bag and for our 34 chickens I throw a handful each week. Don't over do it because if the chickens aren't craving it, most of it will go uneaten and just end up covered and lost to scratching.
 
lancecolonel said:
My girls egg production has been up and down the last couple months. The easter egger that lost a toe hasn’t laid an egg since that happened. I’ve been getting random “wrinkled” eggs too. Wonder what causes that?
Click to expand...
We had a young 2 year old easter egger that stopped laying probably around May of 23. My wife had been bouncing around with different feed due to other issues with these chickens (Comets, easter eggers, silver laced wyandotte & americauna) and the Silkies. She finally kept on one brand and back in December the easter egger kicked back in after 7 months of nothing. I told my wife, if they aren't laying eggs I'm not keeping chicken pets around. Those golden comets are just about to be soup.
 
Lost one of my girls to a hawk yesterday. By the time I got outside her neck was picked clean. Looked like a shitty way to die. I think the rest of the flock witnessed it, it took me hours to find them and draw them out from their hiding spots so I could get them back in the covered run. They are still oddly quiet today.
 
lancecolonel said:
Lost one of my girls to a hawk yesterday. By the time I got outside her neck was picked clean. Looked like a shitty way to die. I think the rest of the flock witnessed it, it took me hours to find them and draw them out from their hiding spots so I could get them back in the covered run. They are still oddly quiet today.
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I'm sorry you lost your girl. :(
It's an awful way to die. A few years ago in winter I thought one of my reds and buff orpington were fighting. Then I realized it was a red hawk when the hawk started chasing the chicken. I got outside just as the hawk almost had the hen pinned down. The hen was screaming. You wouldn't think a chicken could make a sound like that. The hawk flew off. Chicken was still screaming when I picked her up and trying to fight. So I started calling her name and then she looked up and realized I had her and she just melted into my arms. She had a couple of slices on each of her sides and some bald patches but otherwise OK. A few more seconds and it probably would have killed her.

All the birds were really nervous for a while and stayed near the coop. There was a lot of snow and they couldn't get to their favorite hiding spots. Plus when we looked at the camera the hawk had been flying about 5 feet off the ground clear from the back of the yard. So they didn't see it coming.
 
Anyone need a couple free male ducks? I have too many and they’re beating up the females.
Either they head to someone else’s farm or to my freezer.
 

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