Chicken attacked by a raccoon! Please help!

[abbytate12]

Hi, I just found this website this evening, and I was wondering if anyone could help with my chicken that was attacked by a raccoon earlier this evening. She has a large open gash on her back and it looks like a chunk of flash is missing and her wing is badly injured. It looks like her wing was torn open at the joint, and part of her wing bone is visible. I didn’t know what to do at first so I brought her inside and applied livestock wound powder to the injury. After reading a few articles, I cleaned the wound and as much of the wound powder off as I could with saline solution, and then disinfected the wound with iodine before covering the wound with wound powder again to stop her from packing at it. She is drinking her water with electrolytes in it and she seems to be OK moving around, though obviously she can’t move her injured wing as much. We don’t really have any livestock vets in the area, and I’m not sure if it’s realistic to expect the wound to heal, or if it would be more humane to process her. I have read about some chicken injuries needing stitches, and I’m wondering if that’s something I could do, especially on her wing. Please help!

 

[abbytate12]

This is how she looks after wound powder

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hi. You say she has a gash? Where is that located? Can you trim feathers away from it, take pics and post them? Then in the morning when others come on they can advise you on how best to treat your hen. Also can you tell us, generally, where in the world you are located? That will help them tailor their advice to your situation.

For now I suggest you put her in a box or dog crate and turn off the lights so she will get some rest. If you have any antibiotic ointment like Neosporin that does NOT have pain medication in it, smear some of that on her wounds to keep them from drying out. If you don't have any of that, petroleum jelly (Vaseline) will do. Keep her inside where flies cannot get to her.

@Wyorp Rock
@Eggcessive
@azygous

Hopefully one or more of these will assist you in the morning. Good luck!

 

[abbytate12]

Hi there, thank you for your help! The gash is on her back, towards her tail. She’s currently in a clean box of sawdust in the garage, and I think she’s asleep now. I did use iodine to clean the wounds, but I put wound powder on afterwards and I think this dries wounds out. Should I try to keep them moist instead? I don’t think there’s much more I can do tonight but I’m going to the pharmacy first thing in the morning to get wound cleaning supplies so I will clean it again and take more pics then. I live in Maryland, so we do have a lot of vets, but they are almost all small animal vets, not livestock/mixed animal. I’m also hesitant to take her because I once took a chicken with bad fly strike to the vet and they plucked out a whole bunch of feathers, which only made the chicken suffer more before we eventually had to process her...

 

[abbytate12]

This is what she looks like this morning. I used wound cleaner and iodine and then covered them in neosporin. I tried to bandage her up, but she didn’t like the bandage on her wing so I took it off. I also made up a gallon of water for her with aspirin and electrolytes in it.

 

[azygous]

Chickens can heal from some very serious wounds. It just requires time and care until the new tissue covers the wound. Meanwhile, she will need daily wound cleaning and keep the wound moist so that new tissue can be nourished to grow. Using a topical ointment will keep the wound moist. Powder may keep infection under control, but it does nothing to encourage tissue growth.

She would also benefit from an oral antibiotic such as fish mox 250mg once an day for ten days (amoxycillin) . Any time an animal attacks a chicken, bacteria is certain to have been introduced deep into a wound that may not be able to be flushed out completely.

 

[Swbertrand1]

Good information in all of these posts - keep the wound clean, keep antibiotics on it, but don't close it... azygous will NOT steer you wrong!

 

[Chikenux]

I had a raccoon attack my 5 lovely white leghorns, no one was hurt maybe a little gash in the neck but they lived, what I did was feed them meat bird feed or game bird feed 22% protein so they can recover faster but with that kind of wound just clean and check everyday and separate from other chickens that might peck that wound. As for the racoon I installed a game camera in a T-post or tree and saw just one racoon, got a trap from the neighbour ( the one that traps the hand ) put some bait within a week I got him and put him out of his misery with a .22.... Honestly I didn't want to kill him but the money that a spent on my 75 chickens is already expensive so I can't afford to lose any hens, also I didn't want to relocate that racoon into another person homestead (a lot of people here homestead in my area) or property. Predator Vs Homesteaders sometimes I win sometimes I lose $$.

 

[donnaboydjones]

Hey there!

I am so sorry to hear about your girl.

I have unfortunately had attacks by the neighbors dog, and it will just took time and patience, but she will heal. Mine were really sore for a few days and at the worst attack, it took 3 weeks before they were back up to par.

I wouldn't cover it though, I would keep it clean, but allow it to circulate and dry out naturally , where the bandage is going to keep it moist and can take it longer to heal and/or cause infection with bacteria growing under covers.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Hi, I never got any more alerts on this thread so forgot all about it. How is this hen doing now? It's been several weeks so I'm hoping she's all healed up by now, but I just thought I'd ask.