so_fancy_af
Chirping
At 8:30 AM a fox attacked my four chickens while I was sitting ten feet away. I was able to run after it and scare it off, but it still managed to injure my one-year-old Easter Egger. I couldn’t find her for six hours and I honestly thought she was toast. She’s partially blind and needs a lot of help. I love her to death and I can’t tell you how happy I was to find her. She was obviously exhausted, and she’s missing a bunch of feathers on her butt, though amazingly it doesn’t seem like the fox actually got purchase there. She has a fairly significant puncture wound on the midline of her back—I don’t have a photo right now because I already cleaned it and packed it full of triple antibiotic—with a tear about an inch long and two very clear tooth marks. My husband thought I was too shaken up to see the full extent of her wound, but he said it’s “pretty bad.” When I brought her home it wasn’t freely bleeding and at my first inspection I didn’t see any bone or organs. It appears she somehow avoided a corresponding puncture on her underside, which seems almost too good to be true. My husband did a full-body check of her and couldn’t find any broken bones or obvious external injuries. As soon as I got her inside and put some food and water in front of her she started eating and drinking. I put electrolyte mix in her water. She also pooped fairly soon afterward and it was a normal color and consistency. She was standing on her own and moving around a little, but because she can’t see well she generally moves very deliberately, making it hard for me to tell if she was especially shocky or favoring a leg. I set up a large refrigerator-sized box with the top cut out for her in our garage with a perch and a heating lamp on one side. She was alert and talking to me a little bit before it got dark and she started snoozing. I went to Tractor Supply and got some of the vancomycin spray suggested in another post. I’m planning on trying to clean the wound at least twice tomorrow and I may need to clip a couple feathers out of the way. What am I missing? Are there other things I can do to make her comfortable and help her heal? I know it’s impossible to say without seeing the injury, but is there a chance she will recover? I want to cry just writing that because I’m so heartbroken and afraid she’s not going to make it. I don’t know what I’ll do if I go check on her tomorrow morning and she passed away. I’ve attached a picture of her box and the bandaged wound. I’ll try to get a better photo tomorrow. Thankfully my other three girls are completely fine, just annoyed they couldn’t wander around much after I found them and put them in their coop/run. I’m not planning on letting them free range until we can make them a bomb-proof tractor. I’ve spotted a bobcat twice now, once in my yard and once in my neighbor’s, and we’re filthy with raccoons, coyote, and of course, foxes.