Chickens peeled skin off, and made DEEP holes in duck's back!!!!

[Sunshyne276]

It was horrible.

First, I usually keep the two ducks separate, but they ran into the chicken coop/pen last night, and didn't want to come back out.
I didn't see any harm.

I checked in the morning, everything looked to be ok.

Went back an hour later, to let everyone out to free-range, and I seen a chicken pecking Bucky's back.
I, at first, thought she was eating something off his back. Lice? Crumbs??
Then, he turned sideways and I thought i'd faint!!!

They were EATING him alive, literally!!!!

Most of his back is skinned, he has two VERY deep (can see bone) wounds.
Then, one of his eyes looks a like glazed, and he has a couple small bites marks on his neck!

First.....has ANYONE ever seen an animal (duck, chicken, anything) live through something like this?
And then, what do I do to clean and treat this wound, without getting anything IN his body cavity?
He is eating, drinking and acting normal.......i've never seen anything like this in my life.

And.. Are all chickens like this? My temptation is to turn that one particular chicken into pet food,
and get rid of the rest.

If I were to keep these monsters, can I *ever* trust them with my ducks?
My younger chickens, once they grow up? My cats???

 

[slackwater]

I'm so sorry! I know that chickens will mercilessly pick at an injury - so, once it was started, it was unlikely that they would stop. But that is horrible.

Do you have any saline? You can rinse his wounds with that. If the injury is between the wings, you can add Neosporin & then cover with gauze & wrap with vetrap. Def add some electrolytes to his food and you might want to add antibiotics pre-emptively to his water (whatever antibiotics are safe for ducks - I'm not sure about this one).

 

[Sunshyne276]

Thank you so much.. Yes, I have started him on antibiotics and electrolyte/vitamins. I did rinse his back, slightly.
He is doing so well today, despite his injury. Quacking, coming up to me, like normal. Eating/drinking like crazy.
So, I will just keep medicating and caring for him, and keep up hope!

(Honestly, didn't know chickens could be so vicious!)

 

[dragonlair]

When you think about chickens, think Jurassic Park and the Velocoraptors or whatever they were called. Chickens can be nasty predators. I had a flock gang up on one of my sweet little bantam hens. They chased her into a corner and picked away at her when she was trapped. By the time I could get to her they had picked her all the way to the bone. Poor little hen died.

 

[juliaforee]

Sounds awful. I can understand your instinct.
For what it's worth we had a young roo who was brutally pecked, and eventually made a full recovery, but it was his skull that was exposed (shoulder to comb) not his back. Not sure about ducks.
For Kip we kept him in the house with feed and water, and I put antibiotic (the human kind) ointment on his head for the first week or so. Took him almost a month to recover (he had one leg that he wasn't using at first) but now he's normal, with a bit of a red stripe where some of his feathers didn't fully regrow.

He was also dazed at first, but perked up after a couple days. Getting his leg under him took a few weeks...about the time we were reluctantly talking chopping block he pulled it back under him and then started perching on the side of the box. If you have a large dog crate you could keep him in there. Free range ducks in the house are, well, a mess.

Whatever you do you'll have to keep ducky away from other birds till he's really healed. Chickens do go after anything unusual (wounds).

A disinfectant like Benzalkonium chloride (used for pierced ears) might work, From my experience it doesn't sting at all on my own cuts, and it's designed to work against anaerobic bacteria/deep wounds. or providone iiodine .As I said, I used antibiotic ointment, but that's to keep them from growing, not wash them to begin with. If I recall correctly we didn't actually wash our guy, just the antibiotic.

He'll need some extra protein to help him heal. Do ducks eat scrambled/boiled eggs? Best of luck.