AustinTXMJS
In the Brooder
- Oct 9, 2018
- 19
- 49
- 44
Hello everyone, I am new to chicken keeping and would like to share what happened to me last night/this morning.
I have five five-month old Barnevelder pullets living in a coop in my backyard. I live in an urban area and have been having a great time raising these chickens from day old chicks. So far so good- no eggs yet, no problems until today.
At 4:30 in the morning I heard terrible screeches coming from the henhouse. I went out to investigate, fearing the worst. I had a pissed-off opossum in my run and one very agitated hen, with the rest on the roost watching everything unfold. I let the opossum out because I was more worried about the poor hen. I grabbed her and wrapped her in an old towel took her inside for triage in my bathtub.
Most of her tail is gone, and she has a good size bloody hole on her back with a chunk of flesh missing (think... the size of the opening of a normal coffee mug, I guess) and a chunk of skin ripped off her left "drumstick" with some muscle exposed. Her beak was bloodied as well, and it looks like the very tip of the top mandible was cracked off in the commotion. I didn't know what to do about his so I left it. I did my best to trim away the feathers and completely flayed skin from each wound, leaving a big flap to cover her back. I rinsed all the wounds out with a mix of warm water and antibiotic cream. The chicken was exhausted at this point, allowing me to manhandle the poor thing to get at her wounds better. I patted the wounds dry with sterile gauze and put her in a plastic tote to sleep with some bedding and a chick waterer.
Tonight, I went to Tractor Supply and grabbed some Blu-kote spray and electrolyte powder. The wound on her back seems to have dried very nicely, and looks like the flap of skin has mostly covered it. I sprayed it with blu-kote and it agitated her a fair bit. She wanted nothing to do with me spraying her leg, so I did my best and figured it wasn't worth stressing her out over it.
She seems fairly weak. Mostly sleeps all the time and makes no noise. I have her in my kitchen (two-bedroom apartment, no real "mud room" to speak of) and she perked up when I boiled some pasta for (my) dinner. I boiled an egg to mash and give her tomorrow morning to see if she'll eat.
To detail my chicken coop area, I have a very sturdy henhouse made of cedar with hardware cloth "sides" because of this Texas heat. Nothing is getting in there. I believe the opossum got in by crawling in the run I knocked together from pallet wood, and got in the henhouse though the unlatched door. Lesson learned, I latched the door tonight. And set out a opossum trap.
I am not sure if I am doing wound care correctly. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!
I have five five-month old Barnevelder pullets living in a coop in my backyard. I live in an urban area and have been having a great time raising these chickens from day old chicks. So far so good- no eggs yet, no problems until today.
At 4:30 in the morning I heard terrible screeches coming from the henhouse. I went out to investigate, fearing the worst. I had a pissed-off opossum in my run and one very agitated hen, with the rest on the roost watching everything unfold. I let the opossum out because I was more worried about the poor hen. I grabbed her and wrapped her in an old towel took her inside for triage in my bathtub.
Most of her tail is gone, and she has a good size bloody hole on her back with a chunk of flesh missing (think... the size of the opening of a normal coffee mug, I guess) and a chunk of skin ripped off her left "drumstick" with some muscle exposed. Her beak was bloodied as well, and it looks like the very tip of the top mandible was cracked off in the commotion. I didn't know what to do about his so I left it. I did my best to trim away the feathers and completely flayed skin from each wound, leaving a big flap to cover her back. I rinsed all the wounds out with a mix of warm water and antibiotic cream. The chicken was exhausted at this point, allowing me to manhandle the poor thing to get at her wounds better. I patted the wounds dry with sterile gauze and put her in a plastic tote to sleep with some bedding and a chick waterer.
Tonight, I went to Tractor Supply and grabbed some Blu-kote spray and electrolyte powder. The wound on her back seems to have dried very nicely, and looks like the flap of skin has mostly covered it. I sprayed it with blu-kote and it agitated her a fair bit. She wanted nothing to do with me spraying her leg, so I did my best and figured it wasn't worth stressing her out over it.
She seems fairly weak. Mostly sleeps all the time and makes no noise. I have her in my kitchen (two-bedroom apartment, no real "mud room" to speak of) and she perked up when I boiled some pasta for (my) dinner. I boiled an egg to mash and give her tomorrow morning to see if she'll eat.
To detail my chicken coop area, I have a very sturdy henhouse made of cedar with hardware cloth "sides" because of this Texas heat. Nothing is getting in there. I believe the opossum got in by crawling in the run I knocked together from pallet wood, and got in the henhouse though the unlatched door. Lesson learned, I latched the door tonight. And set out a opossum trap.
I am not sure if I am doing wound care correctly. Any advice would be appreciated, thank you!