Chicken attacked - safe to eat eggs?

[eek620]

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Hi,

This is my first time posting here and we are relatively new to having backyard chickens but this is what happened Early Friday morning.

Our coop was not closed all the way and during the night something got into our coop and attacked one of our four chickens. there were feathers all around the coop and the chicken had a huge gash around its neck. We were able to clean up the wound disinfect and stitch up the chicken. Actually I assisted and my husband, who is an expert in this area luckily stitched her up. She's on antibiotics and we are rinsing the wound regularly. We are thinking that this was a raccoon attack. She is also separated from the rest.

My question is that raccoons obviously carry rabies and other diseases. Is it ok to integrate the hurt chicken back with the others when she is better? Can she be infected with rabies and is it ok to eat her eggs assuming she heals ok and is done with antibiotics? Should we have not tried to save her?

We handled her with gloves and this was late afternoon on Friday when the attack was early Friday morning around 2 am.

I am unsure what to do since we haven't had to deal with this before. Hard lesson learned in making sure that the coop is secure!

Thank you!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Chickens don't get rabies.
I would be more worried about the eggs with the antibiotics than some disease. Few diseases are passed vertical from hen to chick through the egg.
Good luck to your hen. Sounds like you guys did a good job.
I'd use betadine and eye type triple antibiotic ointment for the wound.

ETA
Depending on the antibiotic, after that's out of their system, the eggs should be good.

 

[eek620]

Thank you for your response! We will try that triple ointment on her wound as well.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I recommend the eye type because it melts at body temperature and works its way deep into the wound in case it wasn't flushed well enough.

 

[eek620]

Hi. Hopefully I am posting in the right place. so the chicken that got attacked healed nicely and yesterday laid her first egg! The problem was she laid it outside behind a bush. So today I kept them in the coop to see if it would force her to lay in the box. She ended up laying on the floor of the coop and not in the boxes. I saw her checking the boxes out but did not end up laying there... What can I do?

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

Hi. Hopefully I am posting in the right place.

so the chicken that got attacked healed nicely and yesterday laid her first egg! The problem was she laid it outside behind a bush. So today I kept them in the coop to see if it would force her to lay in the box. She ended up laying on the floor of the coop and not in the boxes. I saw her checking the boxes out but did not end up laying there... What can I do?

Great news that she healed...and that she laid her first egg. First eggs are always exciting!

New layers sometimes take a while to "get" where you want them to lay. Were there already eggs in the nest boxes? If not, you could try adding ceramic eggs or golf balls to try to entice her to use them. I've had pullets drop an egg in the mud outside of the coop and even once found an egg in the corner of the garage (that was a weird surprise). They will usually figure it out, though, even if they lay in inappropriate places initially.

Good luck!

 

[eek620]

Thank you ! I will try adding ceramic eggs. There are not any in there now. hopefully she will figure it out!