Chicks attacked by predator one badly wounded <New PICS>Graphic

[threehorses]

Quote:
Ohhh I'm so sorry - I missed this! I meant keep him up away from the other birds, preferably in the house to keep flies away from him.

LOL on the Superman's cape! /hugs

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Quote:
Ohhh I'm so sorry - I missed this! I meant keep him up away from the other birds, preferably in the house to keep flies away from him.

LOL on the Superman's cape! /hugs

Oh, good. I was thinking 'keep him awake for two days' and I was thinking that no chicken would survive on my watch.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Agreed about resilience! I thought chickens were tough. Well when they decide to live; if they decide not to, they just don't. I say "decide" but mostly it's watching their body language so it looks like deciding.

I usually have faith in them. Only this year we had a really really bad dog attack on our geese. I had one whose front of his neck - well let's just say when I found him I told my bf "that's it - I can't believe I have to kill him" because he was so alert and brave. But his neck was just too much.

My boyfriend said "just give him a shot". It was so bad that I literally cried the whole time I was stitching him up, kept stopping saying "I can't - I can't keep him alive like this." My boyfriend kept saying "you're doing ok - just keep trying". I did until I was done. I figured since he was the lead of the gaggle, he could at least die with his flock.

Well he didn't die - he didn't feel good, and he has a good bit of scarring, and his line down the back of his neck is crooked like a crooked line on the back of line-back stockings. But he is alive, and beautiful, and healthy.

They really are tough. If they're not so shocky (or have internal injuries) they can make it through some amazing things.

 

[CaliBlueChicken]

Quote:
Agreed about resilience! I thought chickens were tough. Well when they decide to live; if they decide not to, they just don't. I say "decide" but mostly it's watching their body language so it looks like deciding.

I usually have faith in them. Only this year we had a really really bad dog attack on our geese. I had one whose front of his neck - well let's just say when I found him I told my bf "that's it - I can't believe I have to kill him" because he was so alert and brave. But his neck was just too much.

My boyfriend said "just give him a shot". It was so bad that I literally cried the whole time I was stitching him up, kept stopping saying "I can't - I can't keep him alive like this." My boyfriend kept saying "you're doing ok - just keep trying". I did until I was done. I figured since he was the lead of the gaggle, he could at least die with his flock.

Well he didn't die - he didn't feel good, and he has a good bit of scarring, and his line down the back of his neck is crooked like a crooked line on the back of line-back stockings. But he is alive, and beautiful, and healthy.

They really are tough. If they're not so shocky (or have internal injuries) they can make it through some amazing things.

Wow, great story! Thanks for sharing! And Iowa Roo Mom... I would be happy to help you if I could

Lets see it is day 6 for Indigo, he seems to be doing well. His new skin is getting thicker! I couldn't have done it without the help of BYC friends! YAY! lol

 

[CaliBlueChicken]

Hello,
Here's some updated pictures of Indigo. Day 9. This is before the application of neosporin this evening.

 

[CaliBlueChicken]

Hello,
Indigo is back outside and looking great. The others have accepted him back into the flock and they are all getting along fine. Just one small scab left. We have been painting him with blu-kote as reccomended by our local feed store so he doesn't get pecked. I actually haven't put any on him in the last couple days cause it is looking good and no one is bothering him. Thanks again to all the help we recieved from the people of BYC!

 

[threehorses]

Now he really IS a blue chicken. teehee!

He looks awesome. Congrats! You did an excellent job!

 

[purpletree23]

I am so happy Indigo has healed. He really is beautiful and has a wonderful human family who will always take care of him.

I still have a lot to learn about chickens and was wondering if you could give a quick rundown of what you did to make him well again. I read that you used a dilute betadine solution to clean the wound and neoprorin and a bandage. I know you mentioned penicillin. Did you ever give it? Between dressing changed did you clean the wound with betadine again or just reapply neosporin?

Any info would help a lot.

Thanks and congratulations!

 

[allison finch]

Great wound care reference. Good job on him.

 

[CaliBlueChicken]

Quote:
Hello purpletree 23,
Yes first we cleaned it with diluted betadine, I only had a few single use pads of bedadine so I put them in a small dish of water and then put that water into a sprayer to flush the wound(the sprayer worked nicley to "spray" away any dirt and debris.) He was pretty tender the first couple of days so we also soaked some cotton balls in the solution and squeezed them over the wound. Then we clipped away any feathers that were getting into the wound to prevent infection. Dab dried the puncture wound on his back with a qtip and air dried the big wound on his side. Then we applied neosporin in and around the wounds. (We did clean it the first couple of days, I think it was threehorses said to take it easy on the cleaning, so after that we just applied neosporin twice a day, morning and night) We did not put a bandage on the wounds but we did wrap his wing up so that it didn't get into the cleaned wound area. After about the third day though he wouldnt keep his wing wrap on, but he was inside and not in the dirt so we didnt bother with it again. Other than that we just made him a nice little bed out of a clothes basket and some paper towels, they were easy to clean up. I just kept the kitchen floor mopped up daily to clean up his droppings. We gave him electrolyte enhanced water while he stayed inside. We found it at our local feed store, the brand name we found was Durvet. We kept a lamp on his basket to keep him warm. We ended up not giving him penicillin. We were tight on money at the time so I asked my Dad about it and he said to wait to see if we have any infection or not. He never got infected so we didn't use penicillin. To reintroduce him back into the flock the lady at the feed store said to paint him blue or red with blu-kote or red-kote. (we picked blu-kote, well cause duh! He's a blue chicken lol) and then put him in the coop in the middle of the night. He was inside for a total of 11 days.

There is a link that was posted earlier on this forum that goes into step by step detail on how to do all this.. I think threehorses also posted the information. Thank you to threehourses, souixchicken (<---sorry about spelling) and everyone else who posted, for your support. I hope this forum is helpful.

This is care that we personally decided to give our chick, this is not intended to replace the advice and care of your animals veterinarian. Please if in doubt contact your local vet for help thanks! Enjoy your day!