9 week old cornish x (not JUMBO) got her butt bit by a fox. Update, !

[chickensducks&agoose]

one of my meaties flew the pen last night, and I looked all over but couldn't find her. Last night at 2:30am, i heard a chicken scream, I hopped out of bed with my flashlight and saw a clump of bloody feathers on the ground. I assumed she'd been eaten, and went back to bed (sadly). this morning however, she was walking around the yard, waiting for me to let her buddies out, and was eating and drinking, and her butt is sort of chopped off. Like a fox came up and bit her DEEP, and took off the last 3 inches of butt. she isn't bleeding much now, and seems to be acting fine. I don't think we could process her at this point (visiting the processor tomorrow) since she's been eaten-ish by a fox, but I also can't kill anything. what should I do? I also don't think that trying to heal her is a great Idea either, since she's a meatie.. any advice?

 

[jaku]

Your best option would be to cull. You could give the bird drugs and try to bring it back, but then you probably wouldn't want to eat it. You could also just let it go and see what happens, but more than likely it would just suffer and die from shock, infection, or like the last time I tried it with a bird with a dog bite- I ended up culling after I was horrified at the sight of my bird (live) with a body full of maggots.

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

well she seems to be doing fine! I wish I'd taken pictures of the injury, because she filled the whole hole in with an icky dark scab, and she's eating, drinking, pooping and roosting and just seems to be fine. I didn't even do anything! I was going to cull her but took her to a friend's house for him to do the 'deed', and he said I should just let her be since she didn't seem to be in any pain or anything, which is amazing cause it's a LARGE injury, about an inch across, and 3 or 4 inches long, right above her tail, crossways. So now she's in with my 4 chicks and my physically disabled duckling, and she seems to be perfectly healthy. she's 11 weeks, and pretty big though, I'm only feeding her a little bit of food, how long will she live do you think?

 

[SteveH]

Personally , since she isn't suffering , I would treat her with purple wound dressing and see how she does . A standard cornish with a strong will to live might be a nice bird to have around for producing meaties or as a broodie .

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

I was at the butchers the other day waiting for my birds turn when they came out to get me to look at another farmers birds.
They couldn't figure out what had happened to them, every single one of those birds (big 6/7# CX) had a big chunk missing out of their butt. It was clearly a rat problem, and when asked the farmer said yep, their place was an old dairy with feed stored on the ground. That rat liked it's dinner on the hoof and showed up each night for a quick "bite". I wouldn't have eaten it, but that old guy just said aw just cut around it. lol