HELP! Attacked by dogs!!!!

I had the chicks, 4 and 5 weeks old, out in their temporary outdoor pen this afternoon for some fresh air. They're always supervised outside, and I always have the dogs in the house when the chicks are outdoors. We have four dogs. This afternoon, though, my three-year-old opened the back door to go inside, and ALL the dogs came charging out straight for the chicken pen.

Their pen is only a chicken-wire circle held up with posts because I *always* stay out there with them and the dogs are *always* locked up, so it was easy for the dogs to knock over and one of the 5-week-olds got out and all the dogs started chasing her. My sister got the other four birds back inside while I rescued Vanessa, but they caught her before I could. No one shook her or picked her up, but someone did get her with teeth.

It's been about 45 minutes. She can turn her head and she's had a little water with some Sav-A-Chick, but she hasn't eaten, she won't stand up, won't flap her wings, she's breathing heavily and chirping LOUDLY whenever she's touched. I have her separated from the others, because they were stepping on her and she does have some bleeding on what looks like a scrape, but no missing feathers. I made sure she's got food and water and a heat source and if she still hasn't had any food or water I'll try to get her to take some water from a dropper and eat some boiled egg. I don't know much about chicken anatomy but I compared her to my other 5-weeker and nothing *appears* out of place, compared to the other chick her age and size.

Our regular vet doesn't take chickens and the only vet in town who does is closed. Do I need to call an emergency vet, or should I wait and see if she recovers with a little TLC at home?

The dogs are grounded. ALL OF THEM know "sit" and "stay" and "leave it" and "drop it," and not one listened to me today.

I seriously doubt if an e-vet could do much The chick could have internal injuries. Might wanna give her a bit of sugar water and be sure she doesn't get chilled. If she survives the night I would probably put her on antibiotics.

The dogs can't be blamed, when four excited dogs that aren't accustomed to livestock/chickens get a shot at the birds at least one will grab just out of pure excitement.

Clean the wound with 50/50 peroxide and water then put some triple antibiotic ointment, without pain killer in it, on the wounds. She is scared and hurting. Keep her warm and just keep an eye on her tonight. Sorry this happened, but accidents happen.

It's gotta be that it was chickens. ALL of them will freeze when I tell them to leave the cat alone, and they've all stopped as soon as I said "leave it" when chasing squirrels or wild birds. But for some reason, my chickens were too interesting to listen to the human.

So far no change. She's still sleeping/resting, but she will perk up when I open the garage door and peek in on her. Won't GET up, but will look at me for a minute.

One of the best thing to do to a bird (any bird) in this situation is oxygen therapy. Many Vets have a cage capable of supplying oxygen and keeping the avian patient warm. Once the patient seems stable then the wounds are examined and pain meds are given along with fluids.

Of course many of us don't have such a set-up so the best thing to do is isolate and keep the patient warm. Often handling these birds is stressful and doing so may cause death. Once the chick seems stronger you can then examine her and carefully clean any wounds. Don't flush the wounds as this can cause the body temp to drop and the chick will go in shock. Use gauze and warm sterile water to wipe away debris. Often these young birds suffer from torn tendons/crushed pelvis in these situations and they can't get up. The prognosis is poor in cases like these. However, I usually wait 48 hours before making any decisions.

I had a VERY similar situation to you a few weeks ago. Honestly, I covered the wounds I could see with some antibiotic ointment, left her with a bowl of water and a dish of her favorite goodies and then I covered the tupperwear she was in with a towel, turned on the dryer so the laundry room got really toasty warm and left her alone for 6 hours. Shock can kill them as fast as anything else and us continuing to poke at them- no matter how well intended - can do even more harm. Check on her again in the morning. If shes alive- then you can start the really aggressive care:

1) handle her carefully and trim feathers away from any wounds you can locate.

2) wash her wounds with warm water and very mild soap. Flush any punctures with a needless syringe.

3) pack any punctures/wounds with antibiotic ointment (with NO pain reliever- which is toxic to chickens).

4) give antibiotics (we used IM injections of penicillin).

5) give probiotics in the drinking water. Tube feed liquid/meals if she refuses to eat and drink (we didnt have to once she was over the shock).

6) keep her isolated and very warm until the wounds begin to heal cleanly.


We did antibiotics 1x a day for 7 days with my dog attack victim. She also got cleaned, had her wounds dressed and carefully dried 2x a day for 3 days and then once a day for 10 more days. Around day 5 we let her start going back outside with the other chickens but in a large dog crate so she could still hobble around (part of the injury was to her leg) without having to go too far for food and water but helped prevent reintroduction problems with the rest of the flock. After the wound was well on its way to healing we sprayed it with blu kote and then started letting her out with the others during the day but still brought her in overnight to get a really good meal (raw egg yolk- her favorite, grapes, meal worms, a little chicken scratch and some chick mash) and lots of electrolytes and probiotics in her water (since she was on antibiotics) both in the morning and at night. About 2 weeks after the attack she was in good enough shape to go back out with the others full time and now she's completely fine. Shes even a little sweeter towards me than she was before....and she was pretty standoff-ish!

I went out to check again before turning off their light for the night and she didn't make it :'( I'll bury her in the morning when it's daylight.

I can’t fault the dogs for instinct, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t annoyed that they ignored the commands to sit and leave it. It’s disappointing, but it could have been worse; it could have been more than one or all five chicks, and the other four are all fine.

I don’t know how I’m going to break it to Little Miss, though. It was easier when we had nine little tiny chicks in the pen and they didn’t all have names. By now we’ve had them a month and she likes to sit with them and feed them and she knows all their names, and she named Vanessa!

I am so sorry for your loss.