Peacock emergency

manybirds

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our peacock was looking Down and out the last few days and scratching at his face so I caught him and looked in his mouth. He has a huge infected dying flesh growth that smells on the roof of his mouth. I think it goes up through his sinus and the whole side of his face is swollen. I believe he was eating and maybe got something stuck in there that turned into a raging infection. I believe he will die soon without vet help but all vets are closed today for one, and I don't think there are any local vets that will do anything for a peacock, we don't have any vets that will look at a goat I can't imagine what they'd say if I brought him in. Is there anything I can do? What's the best poultry antibiotic, I can't get it until tomorrow but I will asap. Should I do anything to it? Should I dig around until I find what caused the infection? It's really hard to work inside a birds mouth without causing harm. It's so big he can't close his mouth and therefore can't drink without assistance. I know, shame on us for not noticing it earlier but he free roams and is very wild and very hard to get to close to when healthy so we couldn't get him until yesterday. I will post pictures later. I will be posting this in backyard chickens as well but figured I would put it on both
 

Hens and Roos

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sorry to hear about your peacock. Can you try and flush the wound out with dilute hydrogen peroxide? Not sure if PenG would work or maybe look at Lincomycin.

Hopefully others on BYC can help you out!
 

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Okay, I know more about chickens, but the only thing I can say is to give him electrolytes. There are some homemade bird recipes and I will go and find one for you now.
 

manybirds

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Here's some images of it
 

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manybirds

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There's no visible wound it's just one big growth of smelly dead flesh, so would I just apply some to the surface? Also whatever I give him is going in his mouth so he has to be able to ingest it.
 

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manybirds

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Probably not hydrogen peroxide because if he swallows it it might be bad. I know you give it to a dog to make it throw up because it expands in the stomach, wouldn't it maybe blow a birds stomach up because they can't throw up?
 

Hens and Roos

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I know chickens don't like it, a friend of ours puts it into eggs to stop the chickens who are eating eggs.

I looked at the pictures, is the stuff in his mouth- cheesy looking? It sounds similar to what our friends peahen had under it's eye, they used lincomycin to try and get it to heal up, they also had to remove the pus and drain it out from under the peahen's eye.

Hope you can get him well again :fl
 

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That looks terrible. I can't really make out what it is as the lighting is poor, but it doesn't look natural or good. Whatever that is, you can't leave it there... That will need to be cleaned out and somehow sanitized. You could use a 50% peroxide solution applied with Q-tips or something AFTER the bad stuff is scraped or cut out. There wouldn't be enough peroxide left to be ingested. It will almost assuredly need some sort of antibiotic as well, but I have no clue as to what would be best or dosage info. Good luck, and hope he makes it.
 

manybirds

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Tomorrow stores should be open again so hopefully I'll be able to get some antibiotics (if I have time I have a funeral most of the day). I tried picking the puss out with tweezers, I got some out but the flesh underneath is still to swollen for him to shut his mouth
 

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