Another Racoon Attack - Badly injured hen, need advice!? **Edit: GRAPHIC PIC

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Hi All,

Two days after Feisty got attacked my boyfriend and I left for MA to visit my parents and brother...my boyfriend's mother lives nearby so she stayed at our house to watch Feisty. She works literally all day, from sun up to sundown, so she wasn't able to watch her as much as she or we'd have liked, but better than nothing.

Feisty's still alive!! I'm so proud of her for hanging in there. I just hope this is still the beginning of a success story and not a failure, because I'd feel incredibly horrible if she went through all this just to prolong her death...

I'll post pics of her neck as soon as I can, but we just got back home Friday and have been running around getting things back in order.

She seems pretty alert, does not pant anymore, hobbles around her box a little, and stands up to eat and drink on her own. I try to up her water/antibiotic intake by piping water into her beak but she doesn't like that much. Often when I do that she'll stand up and drink from it like she does from the nipples they use out in the coop and run, which seems like a good thing to me. She wipes her beak clean when food sticks to it after drinking, but I haven't seen her preen yet. Doesn't seem to have issues holding her head up or moving her neck, eyes, etc.

However, she's not interesting in much besides the dried mealworms, which all our chickens go NUTS for. She'll eat a good amount, and i've tried putting a few on top of her feed crumbles, but afraid to take the worms away in case she'll not eat anything else.

I have baby food, oatmeal, cream of wheat, fruit, salmon...all sorts of things that i try to water down to pipe into her, but haven't done much of that yet.

Her beak has grown over and i put a small paver beside her food so she can try to grind it down herself, but i may help her with an emery board tomorrow because it makes it harder to eat.

Her poop is mostly white (pee, right?) and very watery, with a little very dark stuff (poo?). The latest spot from last night or this morning is super green though...does green poo only mean dehydrated and starving or could it also mean shes had a bunch of tetracycline without enough food?

what do you guys think about her progress? good, bad, indifferent?
 
Glad to hear that she's still thriving.
smile.png
This poop chart might help: http://pluckandfeather.com/chicken-poo-chart-graphic.html. It sounds like she's not eating enough food, after she eats you should feel her crop. If it is round and feels hard and bumpy with food then she's full, when it feels squishy and not very bumpy or only has a small amount in there she is probably not eating enough.
 
lol thanks for the poop chart. i know shes not filling her crop, ever, but sometimes i feel more in there than others.

the day after i posted that question feisty ate a good amount of meal worms, and ended up pooping actual poop, which was a relief. yesterday she ate a piece of a cantaloupe, maybe a 5" wide slice. shes pooped normally for the most part the past couple days but there is still a little green in there from time to time though. so nice talking about poop...

she is still limping but i tried looking at her leg with a mirror and a flashlight the other night and it doesnt look as terrible as i thought...

she clucks at me a little now, whether in protest or greeting, im not always sure.

maybe i am worrying too much and looking into things more than i should, but she's gotten into the habit of grinding her beak, per se, as humans grind their teeth. i guess opening and closing her beak several times each time she does it, and does that periodically, especially when i try to get her to eat food. she'll also look at food, open and close her beak, then become uninterested in whatever food was in front of her.

I cant decide if this behavior is
a) normal
b) due to her beak starting to become overgrown (she usually has a very short one, now the top is hanging over the bottom by 1/4"
c) trouble swallowing (which i doubt...?)
or d) stress from molting makes her not want to do anything

Molting requires a lot of protein and extra calories though, right, so wouldn't her initial response be to eat more? Should I try carefully clipping the very tip of her beak off, since my emery board did nothing but annoy her?

There are some pin feathers in the skin that kind of got bunched up at the back of her head, and along her spine where there were feathers missing. none growing in between her wings and back of the base of her neck though, those shallow areas when shes sitting. see pics below from saturday and tonight.





i want to make sure she doesnt stop eating and die!!
 
I feel so bad for your hens that got ambushed and the one who's in recovery. I hope she hangs in there. The predators around here are crazy - I keep mine in a completely enclosed run. This year the hawk's have seemed really bad, especially over the last few weeks. I let them out, but when I do they are supervised. I lost 8 at once to a bobcat. The raccoons have actually dug under the run to get in at night, but the coop is secure. I have trapped probably 4 or 5 of them and they no longer bother anyone and never will.

The wound on her neck looks pretty nasty, I hope it is healing well. I'm wondering if Vetericyn would help the healing come along a little better?

Good luck with your hen!
 
thank you! i hope she does too :) her neck looks so much better than it did, and the back is almost completely closed up except for a little slit running horizontally across the middle. we've had her on tetracycline since maybe day 3, which seems to have done a good job keeping the infection out.

we're basically in downtown sarasota, next to an empty wooded lot. I have seen a ton of hawks around in the past few weeks...we had no idea we'd have so much trouble with predators in a city (raccoons are a given). at this point i wouldn't be surprised if bobcats were around here too.

how did you make your run enclosure? did you dig down into the ground at all to get the wire or whatnot below the surface? we haven't had an enclosure before but won't let our chickens out unsupervised again without one...have kept our two healthy chickens inside the coop since the last attack and they are NOT happy
 
Well I'm sure they are mad, but at least they're dry!
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I think mine are growing webbed feet, turning into chicken-ducks...
I didn't dig down around my enclosure. I probably should have, considering the raccoons have dug under it and roamed around in there at night. I set up a game cam to find out.. As I said though, the coop is secure so they got bored and left I guess.. I filled the holes they dug with some cement pieces and refilled the dirt on top.. They haven't been in there in awhile now, knock on wood.
I just built a 2x4 frame that abuts their coop. I have a small access door so I can let them out and shut them in at night and another door in the run area to get it to give them food and water. I used 1" chicken wire to cover and surround it. I don't think the coons will dig under it during the day as they are nocturnal. If you do this - be sure to run cross beams across the top!! Just running the wire across will keep hawks and ospreys out but not bobcats. I found out the hard way.... The set up I have now works. I've actually watched a bobcat running back and forth across the top trying to scare the hens out... If you want I'll send you a picture of my set up.

I'm glad to hear your hen is doing good!
 
woke up to the worst day ever 2 of my girls half-eaten and one badly injured her head looks scalped she is hiding from the others since they are pecking her put her in the Lil coop tried cleaning her head but she screams. help what do i do and I know it was a raccoon it even opened the coop door and blood all inside the coop
 
Last raccoon attack on my two bird. But after 15 min struggle raccoon leave. My one bird get injuries at back. Second one fine. Injured one also eating. I applied detol antibiotics for cleaning and apply the Antibiotics paste on her injury. What you guys say
 

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