ccredeur

My girlfriend and I were given four hens- two cream legbars and two golden comets (we think).
When we went to pick them up and we’re loading them in the crate, we smelled something awful. We figured it was a rotten egg. When Leslie handed me a hen, the smell hit me. It was her. I placed her in the crate and we moved them to the truck.
As we were talking to them, telling them about their new life, the hen started limping. We took her out and checked her out and to our surprise, under her wing was a giant infected and necrotic hole.



The people giving them to us said their dog had attacked one of the hens but they didn’t know which one and didn’t know it was this bad. We took her home, gave her a bath and cleaned out the wound. It was so much worse than we thought.

She was in tremendous pain, but she looked us dead in the eyes and let us clean her. We knew she wanted to live.
We started packing the wound and giving her aspirin for pain and shots of penicillin. We did wound care every evening and kept her warm and quiet.
She would eat off and on but eventually started to decline.

After a week of no improvement, on a Saturday, we took her to our vet. The vet said she didn’t think she would make the night. Our little girl named her Coral. We didn’t want her to die without a name.
Coral ended up staying at the vet for 8 days on fluids and antibiotics. The vet was shocked. She said she was a champ with wound care and she started eating and having normal poops. She said that coral wanted to live. We picked her up that Monday on no medication. She limped around a bit, but still wanted to lie down.





We took her outside as often as we could so she could peck at bugs and get some sun. She loved it. Eventually she started really getting around. She was healing beautifully.

She became our house chicken.
She’s gotten so much stronger and is healed up. She runs now. She’s spicy and when she wants something she gets it. She started laying eggs and gives us one every day. She follows us around and comes when we call her name. We love her so much.









During her recovery, we found a stray dog on side of the road who was starving. We took her and and we are nursing her back to health. Grandma, as we call her, and Coral are the best of friends.

We were lucky finding our girl. She is the reason we love chickens so much. She showed us how loving, emotional, trusting and smart they really are. She is the reason I am here. Since getting her, our flock has increased dramatically. We have 16 adult chickens and around 21 chicks growing out. While she still does not live outside, she gets daily outside time and shares the room with the chicks at night. When the chicks are ready to be outside, she will be moving to their flock in their own coop. We are grateful for her.


Last edited: 9 minutes ago