Dog attacked chickens. At least one pooping blood.

[rbeers]

My neighbor's dog was attacking my chickens. One chicken went missing for a while and then showed up hours later. All of them are walking around now but some of them are limping. There doesn't appear to be any puncture wounds. But at least one of them is pooping a lot of blood do you think it could be internal bleeding? I'm worried I'm going to wake up to dead chickens.

 

[chickens563]

My neighbors dog attacked my white leghorn hen a couple weeks back. She had several puncture wounds, and looked in awful condition.

First thing I did was separate her from the rest of the flock, because she was weak and I didn't want others to pick on her. Then I set up a cage in my house where I fed her water from a syringe (obviously no needle in it) and I began treating her wounds with hydrogen peroxide and this really good spray that is made for horses feet wounds but worked wonders on my hen. A couple weeks later, she was stronger and could eat and drink on her own. I did not expect this chicken to survive but she did. And to this day she is as good as new!

My advice to you, is to watch your chickens carefully. Maybe even have a talk with your neighbor about their dog. If you keep noticing any odd things examine the chicken from head to toe, just incase there are wounds you don't know about.

Also, try putting some vitamins or electrolytes in their water, just to assure they won't get any infections. I hope this helped! Just make sure to keep an eye on them and look for more symptoms.

 

[rbeers]

Thank you for responding. I don't know which chickens i should separate some are limping so far they are still alive but I'm concerned about the blood i seen one of them do it but i don't know if there are more. Can it be from stress ?

 

[Gresh]

That blood looks very serious. It could be a result of internal injuries from the dog, or it could be something worse like an intestinal parasite. If you have a veterinarian nearby that treats poultry, I would take in the affected bird(s) as soon as possible.

With the regards to the dog, I would definitely recommend a chat with the neighbor. A friendly warning may or may not be in order...I don't know what kind of person your neighbor is or what kind of dog (as far as disposition) they have. If the dog is friendly but is bothering your chickens I would suggest hitting it with something every time it comes near your birds. This is not as lethal as some options and should teach the dog in a hurry to leave your birds alone.

If you can't build a fence to keep your chickens safe from the dog, I would suggest keeping them in the coop and building a predator-proof run attached to the coop.

~Gresh~