Hawk Attack

[dalasgalas]

So glad she made it through the night. Keep moving forward, you got this!

 

[pennyJo1960]

***GRAPHIC PICTURES***
This afternoon I had a hawk attack one of my chickens. The hawk attempted to fly away with her but was unable to. After the hawk flew away the chicken was thankfully still alive and ran under a pine tree.

She is missing some feathers and has some scratches but the worst injury is on her back on the left side the hawk took out some pieces of her. She has a wound that is quite bloody. She is able to move but doesn't move much or very fast she is obviously in pain. View attachment 1556915 View attachment 1556914

I have her in a tote with some straw bedding, chicken feed and water. She has eaten some food but I haven't seen her drink any water.

I am unsure of how to care for her injuries. I do not have the ability to take her to a vet.

Can I use Neosporin on her wounds? Do I cover her wounds? Do I give her a bath? Can I give her something for the pain?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

She will do fine better no pain meds but you have good advice now

 

[Kimmyh51]

Dress it, (cover with a sterile dressing of some sort) keep it moist, ive used a colloidal silver gel and hyaluronic acid plwder miixed with water into a serum with good results. Give oral antibiotics as a prophalactic, ideally something like augmenton (penicillin and clavulonic(sp) acid, give pain relief. Keep her indoors in a quiet dark place with heating, ie heat pad and hot water bottle. If she doesnt drink any water at all, syringe some to her by mouth, with a little sugar in it. Feed wise, try hard boiled egg yolk, mashed up with a little water till creamy, you can syringe thisninto her if she doesnt eat, but only give her a little at a time and see how she goes. If you have oregano in your garden, try and coax her to have some fresh chopped leaves. Also dandelion.
If she seems in shock,and you have or can get your hands on some diazepam (valium) around 0.5mg per kg (I think the average chook is about 1kg?, just crush the tablet and add water and calculate how much you need,ie if you had a 5mg tablet, and crushed half you would have 2.5mg, so if you mixed that with 5ml water the gave her 1ml you would have 0.5. i wouldnt give her this more than once unless she was really distressed.
Pain relief, metacam is good, if you dont have thqt asprin as mentioned above, and one or two of the NSAID (non steroidal antiinflamitory) drugs can be used. Not diclofenic (voltaren which is apparently toxic).

Try websites like lafeber.com and avianmedicine.net to learn more about how to treat various birds in emergencies, and to find out what drugs can be given to them, sometimes you may not have the most well known drug for a specific use, ie pain relief, or antibiotic, but might find you have something else in your medicine cabinet that you can use instead.

Keep the wound as moist as possible and keep infection at bay, and hopefully it will heal. Deep wounds can take a while. I had a wild drake with a wound under his wing that was down to the bone and quite a bit larger than your chook. It was an old wound when I found him, and had gone black and hard, and was restricting his movement so he couldnt fly at all, or walk very much and causing him a lot of pain and he was pretty depressed.
But after a couple of weeks antibiotics, a warm bed indoors, and twice daily applications of a colloidal silver gel, he was a new man, then the dead tissue came away and underneath was new pink healing tissue, he recovered completely and you would never know he had such a bad injury to see him now.
In my experience the main thing is keeping infection away, manqge pain as much as possible, and keep the bird warm in the first few days after the injury.

As long as you can keep infection away, you just keep dressing the wound and doing all you can to help it heal, and if there is nothing else going on, the bird has a good chance of recovery.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Good morning everyone. Thank you again for all of your support.
She made it through the night! This morning with the lights off she still only made a noise at me when I checked in. After I let a little bit of light in she began eating the watermelon I left out for her last night. I haven't seen her drink any water but have been hand feeding her that to help her along.

As for the scrambled eggs some of you have suggested, I am wondering if my other birds(turkeys, geese, and ducks) can have some too or if it is only meant for recovering chickens?

All your birds can have scrambled eggs! They love it.

Glad to hear she made it through the night. I would keep ointment on the wounds and if you have a TSC or similar feed store think about getting some antibiotics for her. You can usually find Procaine Penicillin G in the refrigerated section.

Don't cover a wound with a dressing unless she is picking at herself.
Keep her hydrated the best you can, the watermelon is good if she will take that, leave some for her.

Thanks for the update, please keep us posted.

 

[MotherHen1234]

Any updates?

 

[C0987]

*Update*

My girly is doing just fine now, thank you for asking.
After a few days of being inside she moved out to the deck during the days for some sunshine and space to move around. She had a bit of a limp and didn't move around too much, just laid in the sun but she seemed to be enjoying it more than the dark bathroom.
After about a few days of deck time she ended up escaping because the gate on the stairs got knocked down and I hadn't noticed, but once I found her she was doing her regular thing. She had a bit a limp and got picked on a little bit so she didn't sleep with everyone else for a few more days.
I let her out to free range with everyone else during the day and just watched to make sure no one was being too mean, if anyone did pick on her she just hopped away.
She rejoined all her friends and resumed her regular routine about ten days after the attack.
Her feathers are growing back where her skin healed, but the area where the bigger puncture wound was hasn't quite recovered enough for new feathers.

Thank you again to everyone for the helpful suggestions you gave.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

*Update*

My girly is doing just fine now, thank you for asking.
After a few days of being inside she moved out to the deck during the days for some sunshine and space to move around. She had a bit of a limp and didn't move around too much, just laid in the sun but she seemed to be enjoying it more than the dark bathroom.
After about a few days of deck time she ended up escaping because the gate on the stairs got knocked down and I hadn't noticed, but once I found her she was doing her regular thing. She had a bit a limp and got picked on a little bit so she didn't sleep with everyone else for a few more days.
I let her out to free range with everyone else during the day and just watched to make sure no one was being too mean, if anyone did pick on her she just hopped away.
She rejoined all her friends and resumed her regular routine about ten days after the attack.
Her feathers are growing back where her skin healed, but the area where the bigger puncture wound was hasn't quite recovered enough for new feathers.

Thank you again to everyone for the helpful suggestions you gave.

Wonderful!
I'm glad to hear that she was able to rejoin the flock and is recovering!
Thank you for the update