Fox attack - chances?

[sande010]

Hi - This afternoon a fox took one of our free-ranging black copper marans. Fortunately we disturbed the act and chased the fox off. To our surprise, the hen was still alive in one of our fields in the middle of a pile of feathers. She got up, then stumbled purposefully and oh so bravely back to the coop where we were able to catch her and bring her indoors for an examination. She has lost a lot of feathers on her back and had some significant puncture wounds - a 2 inch gash down to the muscle, and 4 x1/2 wounds also down to muscle. However, all the wounds were clean and cleanable. I cleaned them out with Peroxide and then stitched each up with a curved needle and linen thread (I don't have surgical stitches, unfortunately). She didn't flinch. 8 stitches in all with Neosporin ointment to all the wounds. I'm hoping chickens have strong immune systems and can fight a bacterial infection better than we can. She's quiet in a dog crate in our garage. What are her chances and what else should we do?

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Sorry to hear this. From what I've read, there's a lot of daily care involved when taking care of wounds, but chickens heal well. Their immune system isn't any more resistant to bacterial infections than ours is. There are recommended antibiotics for when such infections occur. Some recommend giving them the antibiotics premptively to prevent the infection in such instances. I think with daily care and observation, she might have a chance. But, be prepared that she might need to be euthanized.

 

[sande010]

Sorry to hear this. From what I've read, there's a lot of daily care involved when taking care of wounds, but chickens heal well. Their immune system isn't any more resistant to bacterial infections than ours is. There are recommended antibiotics for when such infections occur. Some recommend giving them the antibiotics premptively to prevent the infection in such instances. I think with daily care and observation, she might have a chance. But, be prepared that she might need to be euthanized.

Following up after 48 hours. She seems to be doing well. She’s quiet in the crate on a straw nest in our garage, and will feed from the hand quite hungrily. She even laid an egg. Her breathing is steady and eyes look bright. Yesterday she even called back to the rest of our free rangers outside. We will have to take the stitches out at 10 days as they are not absorbable and will probably be a focus of infection. I’m of two minds now as to whether we should have stitched up her wounds because of the risk of infection from an animal bite and our lack of sterile equipment (we used a sewing kit). They were large and gaping wounds and would not have closed on their own …. So we will see… she seems good at the moment. I will follow up in a few days.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

I would definitely read through some of the posts involving attacks and recouping from them. I'm not positive, but when stitching up such a wound, I think its recommended to leave an opening for drainage. I look forward to updates.

 

[sande010]

Thank you - I’m hoping there will be room for drainage. My field stitching wasn’t too tight - 3 stitches, for example, for a 3 inch wound just to bring the edges together- so there should be plenty of room for pus to drain out. No pus seen so far..

 

[Finnie]

Hi - This afternoon a fox took one of our free-ranging black copper marans. Fortunately we disturbed the act and chased the fox off. To our surprise, the hen was still alive in one of our fields in the middle of a pile of feathers. She got up, then stumbled purposefully and oh so bravely back to the coop where we were able to catch her and bring her indoors for an examination. She has lost a lot of feathers on her back and had some significant puncture wounds - a 2 inch gash down to the muscle, and 4 x1/2 wounds also down to muscle. However, all the wounds were clean and cleanable. I cleaned them out with Peroxide and then stitched each up with a curved needle and linen thread (I don't have surgical stitches, unfortunately). She didn't flinch. 8 stitches in all with Neosporin ointment to all the wounds. I'm hoping chickens have strong immune systems and can fight a bacterial infection better than we can. She's quiet in a dog crate in our garage. What are her chances and what else should we do?

In my experience, they can heal from these kinds of wounds just fine. I have never stitched any of mine up. Not that I’ve had a lot of them, but the few I did have, healed even with large gaping wounds. And patches of missing skin. I would put them in a dog crate with food and water, and give them antibiotics in the water, because infection is extremely likely. No point waiting to see IF it will happen. I then kept them isolated until they seemed strong enough (and no longer bloody) to integrate back into the flock.

I can think of three instances, and I was amazed at how well they healed from wounds that I thought were going to kill them.

 

[sande010]

Following up after 48 hours. She seems to be doing well. She’s quiet in the crate on a straw nest in our garage, and will feed from the hand quite hungrily. She even laid an egg. Her breathing is steady and eyes look bright. Yesterday she even called back to the rest of our free rangers outside. We will have to take the stitches out at 10 days as they are not absorbable and will probably be a focus of infection. I’m of two minds now as to whether we should have stitched up her wounds because of the risk of infection from an animal bite and our lack of sterile equipment (we used a sewing kit). They were large and gaping wounds and would not have closed on their own …. So we will see… she seems good at the moment. I will follow up in a few days.

Following up after 12 days. Our injured hen has done amazingly well. We haven’t been able to catch her to check on the stitches to remove them, but in all respects she is well and thriving back with the flock. Her bald patches are recovering, and she’s possibly not getting as much attention from the rooster, which helps. Her wounds were deep and gaping - requiring stitches in any human and I should know. But her ability to recover has far exceeded any human yardstick, without any infection at 2 days and with no antibiotics apart from some topical neosporin. Without looking at her wounds now - I can’t catch her without extreme measures - I can predict they are just fine and I’m going to leave the stitches in. Conclusion - a hen might surprise you in their ability to recover after a fox attack with only minimal first aid measures. Other folks have commented that stitches are not required, which is even more amazing.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

Chickens are pretty amazing when it comes to recovering and healing.

 

[Finnie]

So glad to hear she’s healing well! Can you not catch her at night when she’s asleep to remove the stitches?