Phew, close call last night.
I'm still off my feet. It's another week or so before I can get the x-rays done, then wait for the report, then contract consultants secretary, who will put us on the lousy of patients to be reviewed and contacted whilst the consultant is on holiday. Them I find out if my stress fractures have healed or if I need an operation. In the meantime there are lots of little things that hubby is finding out need to be done. Mostly finding out the hard way etc. These include cutting the toe nails of a couple of our chickens. Once they get too long, the toe curls round and the nail doesn't get with down at all... one or two girls have always had problems and I saw one yesterday and mentioned it to hubby. It's no different to cutting the toenails on a dog or a guinea pig... we actually use dog toenail clippers complete with guard to prevent you cutting too much off in one go.
So whilst I was nebulising after tea last night he rushes in with a chicken saying he needs me urgently. Errr. Problem 1: you left the wheelchair in another room.... So holding a bleeding chicken he brings me the wheelchair and disappears to the kitchen...
Indeed there is a trail of blood across the floor. I grab tissues, they are the closest things to hand and sit him down to assess the damage. Sure enough she's bleeding badly from 3 toenails. Like all animals and birds, her nails grow, have a nerve and blood supply and it is possible for her to bleed to death from a missing toenail. Chickens don't exactly have a lot of blood in them in the first place!
As I hear the story, here had her on her back whilst he cut her nails. Had the nail guard in place and didn't take the nails even half way to the guard, so did most things correctly. The first nail didn't bleed, so he took slightly more off the 2nd. That one didn't bleed so he took more off the 3rd. All done, he turned her upright and went to put her on the roost and she started to bleed and badly.
He brought her down here immediately. The coop is 250m from the house. The first aid supplies in the kitchen and they include chicken first aid supplies of which we are now rather short.
First aid is first aid. Bleeding is stopped in exactly the same way for humans as it is for most animals/birds. Direct pressure. 30 minutes later and its not working. Still bleeding. So start to think harder. We need to calm her down. She's slightly stressed from being in the house and being handled but she's fairly calm however her feet are lower than get heart... So back to being on her back which is always a fight and especially so given that she's a large bird. Blood flies everywhere! But we achieve it. Feet up and absorbent dressings and gauze out... head covered to calm her. But we have to watch her breathing. Chooks don't have lungs. They have undeveloped air sacs and they can't breath held upside down or breath easily on their backs... It's a different mechanism to humans in that sense.
30 minutes later and 1 toe has stored bleeding finally but the other 2 are still bleeding badly. Ideas are batted back and forwards whilst we are still holding her feet above her head, applying direct pressure to the ends of 2 toes. Torniquay is out of the question. Glue? 2 lots are water soluble so that's out. The blood will dissolve it and it could get into get blood stream and poison her. The superglue lists a cyano complex in its "contains" list. So that's also out. Cyanide poisoning won't be the best option here.
We're still holding her on get back, still watching the clock. I'm mean how do you stop the claws of a dog from bleeding? That's our problem in the terms of a 'pet'. It's the ends of her toenails that need direct pressure on them. 30 minutes, 60 minutes, 75 minutes, 80 minutes, 90 minutes... finally a 2nd stops bleeding but that 3rd one shows no signs of stopping. And the only thing that is stopping it is my finger held directly over the blunt end on the nail (with a sterile non adherent absorbent dressing in between). 120 minutes later and yep, she's still bleeding. A quick change over to me holding her on my lap now only 1 hand is needed, previously we'd needed both of us holding her nails to stop the bleeding. But it's still bleeding more than a drip here and there. It's still a constant stream... and the kitchen is now strewn with bloody dressings, feathers, dander, dressing wrappers, dressings, tissues and blood. It really looks like something was killed in the house...
So we took the decision to try cauterising the nail. It has a nerve ending as well as a blood supply, but 8pm on Easter Sunday limits our options even more so than normally. The first 2 attempts at heating up one of my vegetable knives fail! Hubby tries the spot welder to heat up the tip of the blade. Then the BBQ lighter, nope that didn't work. Finally I suggest he tries the trangia (its a make of outdoor stove from Sweden.) They are bomb proof, fantastically reliable and it did the job in seconds. I had gone with my favourite vegetable knife because it's a thin blade, stainless steel so won't poison her and a nice pointed tip so easy to control and direct. I don't think it needed even 1 second contact and the job was done but it was nerve wracking to say the least... my fingers were holding her toes out away from her feet and feathers and the rest of my hand... if she moved... we had an ice pack ready from the freezer to take the heat out instantly and she thankfully never moved other than a flinch... we also did the 2nd toe nail on that foot as well as a precaution. Just to make a better seal so that when we put get back on her feet, it didn't start bleeding again either.
Then food and water and she spent the night in the house (in a big dog carrier). She made it through the night.
Next time I think he'll be leaving it to me.
And now the clean up operation starts.