I've raised chickens now for a couple years and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Aside from the occasional squirrely toenails, foot caught in something, beat up roo comb, we really haven't had any emergencies. That all changed two Monday's ago, and yesterday I earned myself the MOST HORRIBLE CHICKEN MOMMA OF THE WORLD award.
Two Monday's ago we had a bear attack at 3am. The dogs typically "sound off", but were quiet. My husband woke up to chicken screams. Fast forward - it was a bear attack. I lost one chicken, and almost a rooster. This left me at 4 hens, and sort of a rooster. The rooster's comb was beaten up, his spur broken-looking (it was swollen and heavily bruised). His plumage was ripped out of his butt and all he had was a stump of a couple random feathers poking out. He looked like one of those old Looney Toons cartoon characters. The most damage was at his back - about the size of the back of your hand. It was covered in a dry bloodied scab. He was in bad shape, but each day appeared to improve.
This past Monday I told my husband that aside from the back wound, he seemed to really be back to his old self. Stretching, ruffling his feathers, crowing non-stop, and carrying on with his ladies. The one concern I had was that the wound appeared to be "caving in" on itself, and I didn't think that was a good sign. Yesterday morning I realized how right I was... the situation was dire and grim.
When I let the chickens out of the coop, I smelled something putrid and immediately focused in on the rooster's back. It had literally caved in with the depth of a golf ball sized hole. Inside that hole I caught a brief glimpse of hundreds of black shiny bugs crawling around inside his wound. Enter dry heaves and gagging here!!
My rooster decided to take it one horror movie step further by munching on the bugs in his back. Double gag!
My husband was in a meeting at work and I knew I couldn't "dispatch" him - I haven't had that experience yet and was too...chicken. So I called my medic brother. He was curious about the wound and wondered why I didn't see maggots. He offered to do the deed, and I left for work.
Later he told me after he took care of the situation, that the rooster was in worse shape than either one of us could believe. As healthy as he seemed to be running around, he was extremely messed up. The wound was so deep that it exposed his organs. Apparently after he dispatched the rooster, he found 20x more black bugs and maggots eating away at his insides.
I feel horrible and so guilty. I completely failed my rooster. God forbid if we have anything attack or chickens again in the future, we will be much more cognizant on inspecting the wounds more closely. If bad, we will cull the chicken much sooner.
Meanwhile, I'm going to rinse my eyes out with bleach - I'll never get that vision of those bugs, and the rooster eating from his back out my head ever again.
Two Monday's ago we had a bear attack at 3am. The dogs typically "sound off", but were quiet. My husband woke up to chicken screams. Fast forward - it was a bear attack. I lost one chicken, and almost a rooster. This left me at 4 hens, and sort of a rooster. The rooster's comb was beaten up, his spur broken-looking (it was swollen and heavily bruised). His plumage was ripped out of his butt and all he had was a stump of a couple random feathers poking out. He looked like one of those old Looney Toons cartoon characters. The most damage was at his back - about the size of the back of your hand. It was covered in a dry bloodied scab. He was in bad shape, but each day appeared to improve.
This past Monday I told my husband that aside from the back wound, he seemed to really be back to his old self. Stretching, ruffling his feathers, crowing non-stop, and carrying on with his ladies. The one concern I had was that the wound appeared to be "caving in" on itself, and I didn't think that was a good sign. Yesterday morning I realized how right I was... the situation was dire and grim.
When I let the chickens out of the coop, I smelled something putrid and immediately focused in on the rooster's back. It had literally caved in with the depth of a golf ball sized hole. Inside that hole I caught a brief glimpse of hundreds of black shiny bugs crawling around inside his wound. Enter dry heaves and gagging here!!
My husband was in a meeting at work and I knew I couldn't "dispatch" him - I haven't had that experience yet and was too...chicken. So I called my medic brother. He was curious about the wound and wondered why I didn't see maggots. He offered to do the deed, and I left for work.
Later he told me after he took care of the situation, that the rooster was in worse shape than either one of us could believe. As healthy as he seemed to be running around, he was extremely messed up. The wound was so deep that it exposed his organs. Apparently after he dispatched the rooster, he found 20x more black bugs and maggots eating away at his insides.
I feel horrible and so guilty. I completely failed my rooster. God forbid if we have anything attack or chickens again in the future, we will be much more cognizant on inspecting the wounds more closely. If bad, we will cull the chicken much sooner.
Meanwhile, I'm going to rinse my eyes out with bleach - I'll never get that vision of those bugs, and the rooster eating from his back out my head ever again.
