behavior after predator attack

[araceli]

An racoon attack, killed my beautiful lavender Orphington named valentine. Only the red Orphington left. Ripped her crest almost completely off. We moved and neighbors were watching them until we built new coop. The racoons ripped into coop from top, it seems. Small entry but is all I can find. They just ripped off her head and tore into one breast. I just loved her. Anyway the one left I had to keep her in a small trap cage until I found something for her, just two nights. The coop was unsafe and I didn't want to leave her alone. Plus, I've been nursing her back to health. She is walking like her feet hurt, curling them up each step, and seems to have lost interest in eating. This is day three here with me. First day she ate. Her little feet tremble a bit too as she steps. Yesterday as the day went she started losing interest. Her wound looks good, not infected.

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[Free Feather]

Are you getting more chickens? Fixing the coop? What are you doing from here?

 

[araceli]

We have moved and if she makes it we are building it with hard wire and fixing everything that was wrong. The last one had added hard wire on the bottom half.

 

[araceli]

The last 15 months has been a great fail in chicken keeping. My baby was born and one night the coop was left open and that's how it all began. From then on there have been daytime attacks, break ins, and reinforcement and somehow more break in. It's hard on the heart. Lesson learned, ONLY hard wire top to bottom and make sure the predators can't get underneath. I'm sorry to say unless being supervised the free ranging is not gonna be part of the deal. I'll just have to make the coop big enough and include another with wheels to give them a chance to get around the yard. Let's keep our fingers crossed for Lucy to recover from the shock and trauma. She woke up eating today, good sign, because last night she went to sleep with an empty crop.

 

[Free Feather]

I am sorry for you. Hopefully things will start going as planned.

 

[patti17340]

My coop was attacked by a skunk and it kill 3 of my young pullets. They were 12 weeks old. I had a terrible time getting them to go back into the coop at night. They would fly up into the low hanging trees and I would have to gather them up. We got the skunk but it took almost a month before they calmed down. Also chickens do the like being an only lonely chicken. I found this out when 2 of my 3 chickens died and the one left became so sad. She would follow me around and sit on the patio and cluck all day. It took me several weeks to get her new sisters but I was able to get 3 8month old girls so she had a family again. She was soo very happy.