A couple of weeks ago, one of the guineas went into my backyard and my dog plucked alot of feathers out of her back before I got to her. There was no blood and she seemed to be okay. She has not been able to fly, although all of her wing feathers are in tact. Yesterday she got caught between my neighbors 5" x 5" fence and my chicken wire that I put on to keep chicks from getting out of the pin. When I saw her, two other guineas were pecking her. I freed her but could not catch her. Today while I was gone, my wife and her secretary chased 4 guineas off of her that were pecking her. They were able to catch her and put her into a separate pin. She has dried blood on her skin and one area about 1" x 1/2" of meat swollen or possibly hanging loose. She is not acting like she is hurting, but she has not eaten the food my wife gave her. Should I get some kind of salve for her skin and keep her pinned up or should I shoot her? I hate for her to suffer, but I do not want to shoot her. Will the feathers on her back grow back? Thanks in advance, Mike
Guinea, mercy kill?
wound will heal and feathers grow back. when an animal is injured, they want to isolate but not eat in order to heal.
provide water and a warm shady place for a couple of days, then offer food.
salve and bandages may work, or she may just eat it off and irratiate it worse. that is a small wound compared to some hens, and i have found they heal find with nothing on them. clean it though, it is likely dirty. just use a small baster and pure water.
i had this dilemna some weeks ago. our male lavendar guine ahad been gone for two weeks without a trace. he showed back up well fed but with a leg that appeared broken.
now he gets out with the others and is using his leg some. mainly we let him alone so as not to frighten an already injured creature... made sure he could get to food and water without much pain...
he is our only male, and the neighbor has always wanted lavenders... LOL think he hurt his leg breaking out of their cage...
be patient and don't handle it after you clean the wound.
hello
i have tried many things on chickens which are prone to death by gangrene when wounded.
i have tried ointment, iodine, antibiotics and that blue stuff.
byfar the best thing for me is to wash and clean the wounded bird. trim any feathers that might get into the cut or gash. pat dry with paper towels and spray with bactine spray. spray often two or three times a day and keep on clean bedding. i hope this works for you i have healed hurt birds that looked like hamburger in some areas the stuff is great. one of my hens was so messed up in the back she layed a blood covered egg every day. now she is my most beautiful hen.
if there is a really big wound without skin you can apply a liquid bandage, my mother swears by this something called new skin. haven't used it but worth mentioning.
when a bird is sick and may infect others i break the neck. i kill roos when i have too many. but when it's an injury i like to heal them up. remember, even really hurt animals want to live, really want to live. try killing one and you can just tell they don't want to die. so be strong, buy some bactine and good luck. you will know for sure when it is time for dispatch.
Also, there is a great guinea site too http://www.guineafowl.com/board/index.php feel free to post over there too! Maybe there is a guinea thing we don't know about (people here are very smart and helpful!!!) it cannot hurt!
And give your guinea a chance to live. It is amazing what poultry can live thru and come out alive, happy and healthy!!
excelrealty I used aloe on one of mine which had lots of wounds from being pecked by others. I had the plant and would cut a piece off and rub the gummy juice from it on the wound. Bird seemed to like it and didn't pick at it. Also it as it dries the gumminess goes away leaving the spot nice.
MollyD
Thanks for all of the responses. My wife called our mobil vet, but she cannot get out until Saturday. We just got back late tonight so tomorrow we will have to go to the feed store, or wal-mart and see what is easiest to get. Thanks again, Mike
They did not have bactine and the only aloe they had was a mixture for horses so I bought some corona ointment at the feed store today. The affected area looks like about 4" wide and about 6" long with alot of yellowing. There apears to be alot of quils about 1/2" long in the area, new quils? That 1/2" X 1" patch was my biggest worry, but now that I look at her, the rest of it that was covered in dried blood, is more worrying to me with all of the yellowing. Infection? I held her while my wife washed her in the laundry sink with running water and anti-bacterial soap. I think we should have scrubbed all of the yellow stuff off, but my wife was really squimish of hurting her. We dried her and then put corona ointment on her. It says to do at least once a day, probably should try 2-3 times a day like someone had suggested, but I know I will be lucky to even do it once everyday. She was eating today before I caught her.
1) If she appears to be doing okay tomorrow, should I try to scrub all of the yellow off?
2) After tomorrow should I (a) scrub, (b) rince and gently wipe or (c) just rinse everyday before I put more ointment on her.
3) With all of that yellowing, should I shoot her.
Thanks again,
Mike
PS My wifes secretary took a photo today before we cleaned her. My wife is a realtor and does alot of digital photo uploading onto various sites, but we tried to put a photo on daves before and were not able to do it. Any suggestions of what we could be doing wrong?
First, the yellowing sounds like fluid soaked flesh/skin, kinda like when you put on a bandaid and it gets realy moist underneath and looks weird. Thats what I think anyways. When my parrot got injured the vet said it was good to keep it moist and covered it helps the blood flow return I forget the exact term. This of course is a parrot.
If you reduce the photo to 100kb it should load.
Hope everything works out and you are doing a great job caring for her.
i don't know what the yellowing is without a photo... sound just like the color of their sking.
i fyou continue scrubbing it cannot heal... corona will keep it soft and clean IF you confine her to a clean area. otherwise everything dirty will stick to it...
you could consider what i did with a hen with similar injury froma dog bite, about that size too. i wrapped around and around with ace bandage. she couldn't walk at first, but eventually could fly with that on.
after it was healed i turned her out too soon, and the skin flap came open again. i let it be and isolated the two hens that pecked at her. she healed up beautifully with perfect feathering... i hope she can win at the fair again...
i wouldn't shoot her. you said she was eating. she is gentle enough to be caught and held and washed without clawing you. i think she is sweet natured and is feeling better. when feathers are picked out sometimes the quills are left behind. sometimes they start growing out wuickly. she will need a high protein diet to regrow those feathers. like game bird starter...
Just got home, about 8:30PM. My wife is a REO broker and with all of the foreclosures, she is putting in long hours, and I usually go with her. The local feed store has turkey feed, I will try that, I have been giving them cracked corn and chicken scratch. This will be my first year with grown guineas. I cannot hardly wait for the grasshoppers this year. I have only picked her up twice since she was grown, when my dog got her and when we washed her today. She was really docile the first time, but struggled today until I put a towel over her head. I did not realize that they were so soft. She is a french guinea. Her and her sister are the oldest two that I have. All of the rest of that batch took off last year as soon as we let them out of the pin. Thanks again,
Mike
Mike, how is the weather where you are. Some of us have been wondering because we have heard about severe storms in Texas, and haven't heard from some of the people that post here.
GG
i think argyle is near Abilene. we are OK here.
Mike, hope she is better.
tf
Mike, how is the guinea?
I have not been keeping up with my posts like I should. Argyle is nest to Denton. No problems here from the storms. The guinea is fine. Even named her now, Henrietta. She is laying eggs again. I only have 7 guineas now. Last Tuesday night we got home about 10:30pm and startled an owl that was about to grab one. The chickens sleep inside the hen house, but the guineas only slept there on very cold nights. Been having a time with 6' rat snakes getting my chicken eggs. My wife went to get the eggs last week and came in screaming. She want go out there any more. I do not want to kill the snakes, but do not want them in my hen house either. I have read and heard that guineas kill snakes. Mine do not. I think maybe my snakes are to big or hanging out with chickens has ruined them. Bad association spoils useful habits. Thanks for the concern.
maybe the guineas just haven't met the snakes yet. even our chickens would kill a snake...
we are having a large mouse problem. the catws and our chickens kill them, but not before five two week-old chicks have disappeared.
sounds like you got home just in time. there is a red light that deters flying nighttime predators.... look at:
www.guineafowl.com
so glad henrietta made it through. always nice to hear the "rest of the story".
can you put 1/4 inch hardware cloth on the lower part of the henhouse to keep out the snakes? or maybe some golf balls or fake eggs to impact them? or get some cats?
Do the mice kill baby chicks? I will look at the redlight link right now. The snakes eat my ceramic eggs from crackle barrel. The one my wife found had two ceramic eggs in it. I put it in a cage so it woud have to expell the eggs before escaping through the bars. Don't know about the hardware cloth, I was going to buy some snakeaway and if that don,t work, start hauling them down to the creek. We have a cat, but I think she would be afraid of large snakes. She brings in an occasional rabbit, frog, bird and mice though. We lost several cats to owls so we try not to let her out at night. She frequents the hen house and will just sit and watch the chickens and guineas, she seems to be a little cautious around the guineas as if they move towards her, she moves away, but whe will sit right next to the chickens.
Excell, we lost our cat to owl few months ago.I never knew owls would get cats. We had him for 13 years and he was so smart .We really miss him .
This thread is full of good info .Thnaks yall.
Hey wabbit! About 2 years ago, the sheriff told us that they were having a problem with them taking small dogs and cats. He told us that we could pay $100.00 and get a permit to shoot it if we caught it in the act of taking our livestock on our property and that he would not do anything anyway if he got a call that we shot it without a permit as long as it was in the act. I do not want to do that as my friendly fowl are not our way of supporting ourselves. But if he gets our current kitty, my wife will probably be upset enough to get the permit. We have coyotes, foxes, racoons, and opossums, but have not lost much to them. It is the hawks by day and the owl by night that are the problems around here.
Tamara, did you buy the red lights, and if so, where? I guess you bought the book? I have read that guineas do not scratch in a garden like chickens. Mine do. Is that another case of bad association? My Rhode Island Red hen took my first batch of guineas under her wing and my second batch is younger and easily influenced by them. Did ya'll see the link someone posted from youtube of a rabbit chasing a snake up a tree? I might need to get me a rabbit since my guineas do not know what to do.
LOL, no do you have that link? that's be great to see!
i have red heat lamps out there right now, plus a wire roof over the 12x12 coop, and everyone generally sleeps inside the henhouse with door closed, but not in this heat!
guineas DO scratch, and they love dust baths... i did read the book a few years ago, got it fromt he library.
apparetnly we have cotton rats... down to eight chicks outside. when they go hunting tonight, i hope they don't go after the teenage chicks. the baby's are locked up in 1/4 hardware cloth tonight, so they are safe from anything larger than a fly...
tf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEgNe89IzjE&feature=related
Try this. If it don't work, do a search with the words: rabbit snake tree video. It was funny.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFGxydpkWyE&NR=1
Another one I just found.
the second one was cute too. but that first one was super! she must have had a nest of babies to protect! & those birds flying over, cheering her on!
Just love animals. We just had a foreclosed home in Krugerville where the previous owners left a donkey and 4 or 5 sheep. One of the neighbors has been feeding and watering them.