Chickens attacked by furry woodland creature, now wont eat or drink

[rittschicks]

Hate for this to be my first post but our chickens where attacked yesterday. Our two faviorte ones where the ones to get all the damage. One is dead and the other seems to have some massive eye damage. The only damage seems to be on the left side of her head. She is not eating or drinking but she is in a warm dry place away from the other chickens. We have been disinfecting the area with saline soultion and betadine, but there seems to be puss coming out from inside the eye lid. We don't want it to get infected. I have attached pics to help discribe the area affected.

What do we do about the eye?
She is not eatting or drinking we tried to put some on the edge of her beak but she is having nothing to do with it.
We are worried about dehydration the attack happen yesterday April 20.

 

[kathyinmo]

Oh gosh, poor thing. I think you are doing the best. Just keeping the eye cleaned up is about all you can do.

Best wishes for a full recovery.

 

[Hhoky]

Oh wow what a horrible thing to have happen.
Not sure if this will help, but back when I was a kid my grandpa once had a goat and a goose get in a fight. The Goat lost her eye and the Gander lost most of his upper beak. Talk about traumatic! We had to take care of them both in the same bedroom for a couple of months(strange they became the best of friends after words eh). Anyway, we used warm tea bags and frozen washrags on her eye, tea bags to draw out infection and fluids, and the cold helped ease the swelling and pain. We knew she would lose the eye by the dark fluid that came dribbling out, after I think 24 hours she had yellow pus like goo for a few days, then it started to turn clear. Once it was clear grandpa only used the tea as an eye wash, cleaning away the crusty gunk then keeping it bandaged with clean gauze. Did this twice a day until the socket dried up and healed over.
I'm not really sure if this works well for Chickens, but it worked on the goat. And I've used tea bags on all kinds of eye problems from kitten infections, a dog with a splinter in his tear duct, to human sty's.
Just regular ol tea by the way.
And oh yea the gander ended up fine too, his tongue got all hard and gross looking, but he still ate just fine, and was a real jerk to anyone who messed with his Goat.
I hope your Chickie will pull through, just try to be calm and soothing, talk to her gently. Keep her indoors with the lights low and some kind of constant low ambient/white noise remember she cant see real well and will be scared of the smallest noise she cant see and bright lights will hurt her good eye for a while. She prolly wont eat or drink for a good 24 hours, shock and trauma tend to do that. (If you've ever had an big adrenaline rush, you know how sick you can feel afterwords.)
You might want to check on her every couple of hours if you can, mostly cuz you will worry anyway. If she makes the first 24 hours, you can breathe again. Then worry again in 3 days. Repeat until she is in recovery. (Idk why, but it seems every injury or illness has a up time of 3 days, then a crash minor to major. Might not be truth, but sure seems like it to me

)
Best wishes for a healthy recovery!

 

[BunnyMomma]

I'm so sorry! I am dealing with the exact same injury. The only exception is that I have 2 Mille Fleur Roo's and 1 hen. The Roo's were getting along fine until last week, and the stronger of the 2, just about killed my other Roo. I had to separate him from the meanie! He is in the chicken hospital (quarantine). I cleaned his eye with a 50/50 peroxide and water, every other day for 4 days. I also put nitrofurazone powder on his injuries. Now I'm cleaning it every other day with the peroxide and water and putting neosporin on the poor fellow's comb and eye. It is looking a lot better now. I hope your Roo gets better soon.
I know I will have one spoiled Roo when this is over!

 

[Hhoky]

Oh crap I forgot to ask. Did you get a chance to look at her eyeball? This might seem mean, but its better to do it now than wait and cause even more fresh pain later. If you can, open her eye just a bit with a good light and look around. You'll be able to see scratches, punctures, or any kind of debris that doesn't belong. And if your feeling really brave, smell her eye. Infection smells.

Scratches and the like will heal up with rest, tea bags and time. Punctures will most always mean loss of the eyeball, but not a death sentence! Debris is easy, flush, flush, flush and when you think you got it all flush again. Any kind of squirting device with saline works great. If you can get gauze over her eye I would try it, but not till tomorrow at least, she looks pretty swollen and the added pressure will hurt.
Ok, best of luck. Please keep us updated on her!

 

[nnbreeder]

Really the damage is not all that bad except for the eye. The pus so early on just doesn't seem right to what I have seen in my birds when they sometimes get together.

Did you really check the bird over good for any other damage? Move the feathers around really good and look for places that just don't look right.

Do you have any antibiotics to give the bird? Some Tylan injectable would be good at this point as the pus is a sign of infection.

 

[rittschicks]

We will really check over the body tomorrow, we did not see another injury to her, no other blood, no missing feathers. We will look into the eye tomorrow and see what is beneith the lid and clean it out.

When do you have to worry about her not eating or drinking?

We will pick up some anitbotics tomorrow for her.

Also what if the eye is still in there but it's punctured? Do we need to pull it out or will it fall out on its own?

 

[nnbreeder]

Usually I start to worry on the third day. Do a search for Crop Tube on google and if need be she can be fed that way.

Chickens heal very well and usually if you leave them alone they will do just fine. If the eye is damaged it will dry up on it's own and after getting used to it the hen will do just fine.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I am so sorry this happened, I am pulling for you and her to heal. all the best. you got some good advise.

 

[rittschicks]

Update, we cleaned up the yellow discharge from her eye this morning. And of this evening only some clear discharge has returned. Also the swelling/bruise under her eye has gone down.

She is still not drinking though.
She has a loose stool this morning.
She is also getting more sleepy.

We are worried about her not drinking right now over the eye. We have held her and tried giving her water with the syringe on the side of the beak also to dip her beak in water she kinda moves her mouth and maybe alittle goes in. We are worried about her throat being swollen and not being able to swallow.

How hard is it to put a feeding tube in?