Carrie : I had an unsettling experience with my little Araucana Hazel last week. I noticed that she appeared to be having some “hygiene” issues, so hubby and I caught her and put her in a large pan half filled with water and proceeded to help the little lady clean up a bit. When we lifted her out, we found a quarter size hole on the side of her bum and most of the feathers were gone. To our dismay, the hole was filled with maggots. “For better or for worse”, right? We looked at each other and said, “now what?” I got a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and we thoroughly cleaned the wound and had to use tweezers to get all of the maggots out, I would say there were at least 50 of them. I’m still grossed out thinking about it. Anyway, one more cleaning with the hydrogen peroxide, and a coating of honey, which is antibacterial and antifungal with exceptional healing properties. Then we had to find a place to keep her safe from the other girls. So, little Hazel went to our “Chicken Hospital”, a newly repurposed location in our home, my son’s tiled shower with an improvised door made of pvc pipe and chicken wire. Shhhh, he’s away at college, and we’ll have plenty of time to clean it up before his next visit home. Since hydrogen peroxide is harmful to healing skin, it should only be used the first time to clean a wound. From my nurse friend who is also a wound specialist, she gave me this recipe: 1 quart sterile water (boil 5 min),
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