Coon attack victim still standing...

[Whispering Winds]

Oh, darn it. So Sorry . . .what a learning experience for all of us newbies. Sorry you had to be the one to help us!!

 

[Schultz]

So sorry for your loss but I am glad she was relieved of any more suffering.

 

[cwildeky]

Quote:
Great advise JJ, I don't know what the rasping and gurgling sounds could be either. Sounds like you need to find a avian vet.

(Warning ... parts of this are gross. Delicate sensibilities should probably stop here.)

Ditto. I had one invade my coop last summer -- evidently he climbed over the fence AND the hot wire and then took up residence inside while the coop door was open during the day -- and ultimately lost 4 birds (had to kill 2 after their wounds got infected; the raccoon literally pulled their skin off down to the muscle and bone). The two who survived got pretty much the treatment chilling in muscadine quotes (no avian vet around here, tho) PLUS twice-daily flushings of Betadine and Nolvasan solution on their wounds including the ones I discovered under their wings on closer inspection (i.e., after having to kill the two girls whose hidden wounds became infested with maggots). After about two days of this I packed their wounds with wound powder ... there were such big bare & treated patches that the poor hens looked like they'd been plucked and breaded and were waiting to be fried except for the small detail that they were still alive!

So the one piece of advice I'd add is to double- check for wounds in harder-to-find places -- all six of my attacked birds had deep wounds right around their undersides of their wings -- i.e., where their wings joined their bodies. My guess is they'd flap and the coon would grab.

For what it's worth, I also beak-dipped mine to get them to drink water with electrolytes and antibiotics about six times a day.

One of the survivors is now 100% OK and laying; the other is laying and looks beautiful but if you look very closely you can see one wing is still slightly off -- the raccoon ripped a silver-dollar-sized hole in the top of her wing down to the cartilage. I assume he tore some of her tendons beyond repair.

An excellent but kind of horrifying lesson in wing anatomy ....

It was awful. Good luck to you, and I'm sorry. Danged coons.

 

[cwildeky]

Oops, sorry -- I missed your post about her not making it. My sympathies. :-( I now check the coop every night with a flashlight before I close it up.

In fact, you'd think I'd have learned after the time I found a possum UNDER THE STRAW in one of the nesting boxes; he was hanging out there and just eating eggs as they were laid. Took me three days to figure out what was happening to all my eggs! DOH!

I'm glad the eggs were enough for him!

Anyway, I always bed-check now.

 

[jjthink]

Yeah, I don't even trust myself with locking them up. So I triple check to make sure I didn't imagine that I did it. Always a fear. The price is too high...
Poor girl.....I'm so sorry for all she went through.
JJ

 

[bodefamily]

Thank you all so very much. I will stick around, I really have learned a lot and realize I have more to learn!

 

[thebritt]

Quote:
For heat - a heating pad under 1/2 her carrier (or whatever you use) All the above sounds like good advice - also flushing wounds with a diluted Betadine solution (at least twice/day). Good luck!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

oh geez sorry - onward and upward....