Cat attack, hen skin ripped,"PIC GRAPHIC"Help please

[dlhunicorn]

smear the entire wound with honey... wait about a half hour and then with a "wad" of gauze soaked in warm sterile saline (boil a quart of water with 1/2 tsp salt for five minutes)- dab the honey off with the saline soaked gauze wad ... when you get down to the "old"gauze that you cannot currently get out get your tweezers and try again to remove (do NOT leave on)... flush the entrie area again with the saline once removed and reapply the neosporin.
ETA: You cannot (nor should really) "close" the wound but if you take a feather from each (opposite) side of the wound and pull them together in this wa you can reduce the wound area... super glue the two feathers together with just a drop of superglue (a "feather" suture lol) > you need to be able to get to the wound to flush daily with sterile saline and reapply the neosporin (you dont want the feathers grown over/into the skin.)

 

[emvickrey]

Quote:
That is a great idea and if it wasn't too late for that I would have done it. I'll keep it in mind in case it's needed in the future.

I got lots of the gauze off but there is still a thin layer still on a portion where the skin that I put back drained. She is acting as if nothing is wrong but she is still in the house in the 20 gal aquarium in a quiet room.

Thanks for the info

 

[emvickrey]

I have an update

I finally picked all the gauze ouf of the wound and thee is no infection at all. All seems to be healing fine. It looks gross but as long as there isn't infection things are good. She is a good patient too. She sat for hours while I picked and pulled and cut away the gauze.

How I got it to soften up is I rubbed neosporin in it with a Q-tip and waited a few minutes then started picking at the strings trying to fine one taht would pull out, then another and another and before long bigger pieces where coming loose. I had to be very careful becaue some of them whre on top of veins. I didn't want to tear any. She needs the circulation to heal. It was gross but I did it.
She's still in the 20 gal incubator and in the room that doesn't get used much. When her wound scabs up, i'm gonna try to put her outside in a cage by herself. I want to make sure no bugs bother her. She got scalped pretty much. The area it covered started on her right sid of her neck and the skin got pulled towards her left side and it covered a space from her right side over the back of her neck that covered just behind her comb to where her neck touches her back over to the left side just behind her ear and under it and almost under her neck. It did pull away from her ear but I got that back in place where it's suppose to be. The flap of skin that I got put back seems to be adhearing. It looks bruised though. If it dies she is in trouble unless it comes away by itself. It did alot of draining today and i'm suprised she let me do what I did. It looked like it hurt. I was very gentle though.

I packed it with neosporin agian and put her back in her little ICU. She doesn't try to get out. Ijust have an expandable screen over the top to make sure flies stay out. We do have the occasional but that gets in.

I will keep this thread updated as we to along on her progress. I don't epcet to be putting her outside anytime soon though. I will give her a cage soon though. I want her nexk to dry out first and make sure that after today no infection starts. She is't on any antibiotics at all. I don't have any and can't afford to get any either. I have some in pill form that is for my dog when he had a skin infection but I don't know how much to give her if I had to.

I think that if something doesn't need antibiotics then don't give any. The body has an amazing ability to heal itself and using antibiotics hinders the body from doing what it is suppose to do on its own. I don't use them for myself. I try peroxide or soaking in warm salt water, neosporin if it is about to be infected or is. I don't usually even put a bandaid on a cut either. Depends on how deep it is. That could be why I have so many scars but I hardly ever need to do more than wash the area.

 

[threehorses]

On the draining area, just keep it open so that it can drain. Sometimes you can facilitate that by putting a piece of aquarium tubing in there, or even a straw. But the best thing is to keep the lowest point open so that it drains out. That's what I did with my goose's neck when I had to stitch the big 'tongue' or skin back onto him - left the bottom open, and it was able to drain out. And did. Yuck.

His skin, too, is crooked. I lovingly call him Frankengoose. My boyfriend admonishes me for this, but I tell him that Knothead understands that it's a nickname of honor, showing that he survived the unsurvivable.

We can be very proud of our strong frankenbirds.

Just keep an eye on that one bit of skin. If it does, you'll need to at least find a friend with experience in medicine who can help you remove it. Birds can live without the upper skin - it granulates back in to cover areas that you might be surprised it could cover.

 

[emvickrey]

You know when you buy a whole chicken or turkey and they put some parts inside in a bag and they usually put the neck in there too. Take that neck and peel the skin off of it like a sausage. That's what this ones neck looks like,except it is red becaeu of the blood flow. I can see the veins that run throughwhat meat is there in a next and the tendons and vertabrea. It's really gross but I know it will heal. I read in a thread where one of her chickens got all the skin pecied off its head by the other chickens. Nothing but skull showing. It grew back it's skin over time and most of its feathers. So I have faith that this one will be fine. The hardest part is keeping down the smell from it being inside. I have to change its cage 2 and 3 times a day. I'm gonna put her in an old rabbit cage later today. I don't have a tray to go under it so I have to rig something up. I decided to use this stuff we have around here that is pool liner the hard plastic stuff and some bricks. I'll lay the plastic down first then put some bricks around the edges to keep the cage up off of it so the poop can go through the wires. I just have to rig something for the food so it won't tip over. I have an idea. We have a couple of rabbit feeders that attatach to the outside of the cage and the bottom part that is open for the rabbit to get to the food goes in a slot to the inside of the cage and it has wires that hold it in place. That would work but it has mesh in the bottom. I'll have to rig something to keep the starter from falling through. Then the water, maybe I could use the rabbit water bottle. I did teach some birds last year to drink form them. That would eliminate it knocking it over like it did last night just after I cleaned her cage. Well, its not a cage, per say, its a 20 gal aquarium with an expandable screen over it to keep bugs away. If she hasn't scabbed over yet she will stay in the aquarium until it does. We get an occasional fly and knat get through the door when it gets opened. We have an 8 year old here. Goes in and out alot.

 

[Ducklove334]

unless you actually SAW the cat, you have no way of assuming.innocent until proven guilty

I seen a RAGGY looking cat in our field the other day, I mean THIN as all crap, never even once took notion to the chickens, was more interested in our pig sophies food.

it looks similar to the chickens we had killed, we are thinking a weasel did it, atleast to one of them, the other a fox.

good luck

 

[emvickrey]

Somebody had suggested to me that she could have gotten caught on something and done it herself. Which is possible but I went to try to find out where it happened at in the places it was possible to happen at and found no evidence. Inside the cage she slept in at night with 2 others thre where many smaller feathers like are on, or where on her neck and on the ground under it also. This is a long narrow cage taht we used to keep rabbits in that has been devided in half with a wire wall to accomodate for the 2 rabbits we had. Brother and sister and the brother was getting too friendly with is sister so we separated them. Anyway, the cages sits on 2 saw horses which are wider than the cage so there is a place the cat or what ever could sit at and reach through the bars and grab a chicken. I came to the conclusion that either that cat I saw or something else did just that but couldn't pull the chicken through the bars and ended up just pulling the skin off. But there was just 2 places where I saw splatterd blood, 2 spots of blood that is and that was on the door which could have been from the chicken either swinging her head and the skin flap slung the blood or when the animal let go of the skin flap it slung back and slung blood off of it. The hen wasn't bloody at all. I was surprised at how clean she was concidering what had happened.

There are pieces of fence wire and boards with some nails around in one area. I checked them all and no blood or feathers on any of it. I figured there would at least be something stuck like a feather or piece of skin. NOthing. It all points to something trying to get to her in the cage and when DH let them out that morning he said he didn't see anything wrong. But concidering he isn't very observant I am still going with attack at night.

 

[threehorses]

That sounds like a raccoon to me. Were I you, I'd get a live trap (most county and city animal controls will loan you one) and bait it for racoons. They will reach through cages and grab like that, scarying the birds til they rip themselves up. It probably wasn't a very experienced one - maybe young. You want to nip those in the bud because they'll kill everything.

I've read that they really like sweet stuff -berry jam. The ones here like white bread. So a glop of berry jam on a quarter piece of white bread will trap possoms and raccoons without tempting feral cats. Or use sardines and maybe you'll find your cat culprit and know it was him instead and have some peace of mind after you release him.

 

[emvickrey]

I would have to put it up high to keep my litle chihuahua out of it. When it comes to food she's like crack head. She will even steal food from the chickens.

 

[threehorses]

LOL Yeah, we have a chihuahua too so I know that feeling. He regularly eats our chicken food, chicken poop, chicken anything, and parrot food, etc. /sigh