Toe's Toe
Hi!
We have been and are in the midst of Toe's problem toe. Toe is
the
Silver Grey Dorking who has a fifth toe (like all Dorkings) that is
a
bit deformed, which is why she has always been called Toe. Her
funny
toe didn't interfere with anything she wanted to do, just looked a
little
odd. That was until 2 days ago when the toe was swollen
with scabs on it.
Tom and I caught her - I thought it was bumblefoot and decided to lance
the toe and dress it with antibiotic and keep her inside the house in a
guinea
pig cage over night. We lanced but just got blood and serum,
no pus,
and by morning it was swollen again, though not as badly. She
had not
been very comfortable in the guinea pig cage because it wasn't quite
tall enough for her to stand straighty up, but all and all didn't do
too badly - particularly as long as she could see or hear one of us.
If she couldn't hear/see us, she started clucking unhappily!
Since the foot was no better on Wednesday we took Toe to the vet
down the road, not realizing it was the vet's day off. She was
there
though with 3 emergencies (one dog who bit with a bone stuck sideways
in its jaw and two cats who needed surgery on their broken legs).
The vet decided to try to drain the toe and see what was causing the
problem - she said it wasn't bumblefoot since there was no abscess
on the bottom pad of the foot. Not that the vet sees many chickens,
but she does do a good many parrots.
Toe was an angel baby when I held her and the vet poked
around. Even when things began to go badly. There was some
kind of
anomaly in Toe's toe and it started bleeding profusely when the vet
tried to drain, and it was very difficult to stop the bleeding even
with
a pressure bandage, which was hard to put on given the shape of the
foot. But the vet had all this emergency surgery waiting and
we had to
leave Toe at the vet's until she got a chance to take a closer look.
I
went to visit in the afternoon and took chicken supplies and Toe was
very happy in a nice size cage with two vet techs to talk to.
Toe was
eating well and drinking and every 15 minutes a vet tech would clean
up
the chick feed Toe scratched out and pet her. I told the tech
that Toe
is laying and how to hold her if there is an egg on the way and also
how
to tell if she is probably about to lay (her comb gets very red) and
they
carefully noted all that on her chart on the whiteboard by her
cage.
Yesterday the vet checked on Toe (after she had spent all morning in
more emergency surgery), took the bandage off and it splurted blood.
But the vet had had to rearrange her whole schedule and shove all the
morning's appointments into Thursday afternoon and asked if we would
all
wait until Friday for her to deal with Toe. At this point she
isn't
sure whether it is better to go in an amputate the extra toe or to
tie
off whatever is bleeding. It will mean anesthetic of course,
which is
always risky, but it is obvious to us that Toe would have bled to death
as soon as the weak spot in the toe's artery/vein (I'm not sure which)
gave way. (Tom and I are profoundly grateful that if Toe's toe
was
going to spurt, it did it to the vet and not when we were lancing!)
Anyhow, baring further emergencies, Toe undergoes surgery this morning.
We have an infirmary set up in the living room (a dog crate that Tom
mounted a perch in and also food & water holders & a layer
of alfalfa).
Pic attached. We hope Toe gets to come home today!
I'll report on the
status later!
kcl
