Went out to the farm yesterday and found one chicken dead, and one chicken close to it with a gash in his head and neck. The chicken's name is Poe, by the way. Anyway, I took Poe inside and put him in a heated coop with a towel and food/water close by. He doesn't have the strength to get up or move much yet, so I put SWAT ointment on the wounds to repel the flies and have been giving him water with electrolytes and baby aspirin every half hour or so. I thought about wrapping the wounds but also read somewhere that you want them to be open to oxygen, so I put the ointment on and left them unbandaged. As of right now, Poe is hanging out in a comfy box with pillows and blankets and staying in the house where we can watch over him and keep his fluid levels up. If anyone could offer suggestions as to the best way to help Poe recover, I'd appreciate it. He's a little fighter
Any idea what attacked the chickens? Or did they have a go at each other? Two roosters? The flock will peck a wounded or sick member to death some times, too. I would boil out the wounds with hydrogen peroxide... and put some Neosporin ointment on it, if it's a deep gash. If these are free-range chickens then they are healthier than caged chickens and he's probably got a good chance of surviving whatever this was.
Going by what docs have told my diabetic husband about wounds. Boil it out with peroxide once. Then, put a very thin layer of neosporin on it. When it starts looking better just leave it plain to dry out.
It is so sweet that you care about animals the way you do.... That makes me happy to hear, and I hope your chicken makes a full recovery...... yes, I value all life, too......and am always rescuing little critters I find that need help..... I wish you luck here.
We believe he was attacked by a hawk, large crow, or owl. He's a late-adolescent rooster. Very sweet and well-mannered. Anyway, we think the birds got attacked by ariel attack because all the gates were closed and there was no where to get under the fence. We've been keeping an eye on it and it seems to be doing better. We washed it out with peroxide, then sprayed it with Vetricyn Wound and Infection Care Spray twice a day, and applied the pink SWAT fly repellant ointment over it. In his water jug (water-bottle sized), I put half a baby aspirin in his water for pain relief and to help with inflimmation, we stopped with the baby aspirin the next day when he seemed to perk up a bit more, but you could continue to do this for another day or so. I try my best to avoid giving the chickens medications like this when I can. He is currently staying in a recovery pen by himself. After assessing him, I found that he had a gash to the top of the head, as well as a fairly deep neck gash. His wing was out of place, which we fixed. He is struggling to put weight on his right leg at all, so we believe he may have fractured the leg or sprained it possibly. Because he kept getting rolled over onto his side, we placed him inside of a Folger's Coffee tin with a paper towel under him for easy clean-up. He is immobile as of right now and could not move or stand to access his food and water, so we put it just in front of him so that he could easily eat and drink, which he is doing independently now. He is becoming much more alert in just a few days.
Aww.. poor little guy. We had a chick born with a malformed leg. We had to put her with the peacocks or the other chickens would have killed her. She hops around on one leg and does fine with the big birds. If his leg is broken or doesn't return to full usage, you might keep a real close eye on things when you return him to the flock. Chickens will gang up on a weakened member. We've had chicken hawks hunt here, too. It makes me angry because they can't even fly off with their kill. Our birds are too big. Too heavy. But, they kill the chicken anyway. If you find that it's a crow hunting.. and I'm not even sure crows hunt chickens... there is an automated owl you can buy online that deters crows out of the garden. It turns its head every so often and looks fairly life-like. Crows hate it. I doubt this was an owl attack because they rarely hunt by day.. At least, I've never seen one hunt during the day, here. So, unless it could get night-time access to the coop, it probably wasn't an owl. I hope your little guy heals up, hun.
In the case that his leg doesn't heal right, he'll just stay in a smallen pen or with the younger birds I'm pretty sure it was a hawk, but we saw these large crows hanging out around the chicken pen. I'm assuming it was a hawk though. He seems to be doing well so far, we're hoping for the best
I didn't realize a hawk couldn't carry off what he killed. I would think an owl would for sure take its kill. Around here they do...and owls do sometimes hunt by day although they are primarily nocturnal hunters. Hope your little rooster recovers 100%.
Yeah, Lynn... It's very frustrating. We'll hear the chickens raising a ruckus and run out to the barn and find a hawk busy tearing up the chicken he killed. They try and fly away with the carcass but they can't manage the weight. These are chicken hawks. Not very large at all. We don't shoot birds of prey... so all we can do is make a big noise and hope he doesn't come back for a while. Life in the country! Big fun. We also have blue herons that hunt my catfish. Coyotes and cougars that hunt just about anything. Everybody has to eat.
