Help! Beak injury after raccoon tried to break in

[Nerdc0reRizing]

Hello,

I posted a previous thread on a minor beak injury. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/injury.1179449/#post-18606622

The same chicken, my favorite, has injured another part of her face /beak I can't tell. We woke up to a raccoon trying to dig in to the coop, it was unsuccessful this time but now I'm nervous because I know there are weak spots that need fixing. Point is, her beak was healing from the previous injury nicely and the tip was growing back out and I walked out after we chased the racoon off and found the same chicken injured again. I don't know if it was from the racoon, from a fight amongst themselves (they're about 11-12 weeks), or from running into the run wire. I'm considering taking her to the vet if need be and it's on the table for me.

Please if anyone has some insight or advice I can't tell if it's serious or not. She seems to be eating and it doesn't look like the others are pecking her wound. I did put wound spray on it.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry you are having trouble.

Poor dear, it looks like she may have caught it in fencing(?) getting away.

At this point, I think the best you can do is what you have done. Rinse the beak with some saline and apply some triple antibiotic ointment or Vetericyn.

Follow the advice that @coach723 gave you on the other thread - giving wet feed, seeing that she is eating/drinking well. A little chopped egg along with her wet feed may be good along with some poultry vitamins for a day or two as well.

Hopefully you can fortify your coop against predators. You may need to trap and dispatch the Raccoon, it will come back.

Keep us posted.

 

[coach723]

Very hard to tell from the pictures whether it is the beak itself or the flesh at the base of the beak that is damaged. If it's the flesh, then keeping it clean and watching for infection would be my course of action. If the beak itself is damaged and you think it's loose or at risk of coming off, then based on where it is I would probably go with the vet option. Losing the beak that high up would be much more of an issue. If it's the beak itself then a good avian vet could maybe reinforce it to allow it grow out.
What kind of wire is your enclosure made with? If the racoon had gotten ahold of her I doubt she would have made it, they often strangle them or break their necks trying to pull them through the wire. Probably she ran into the wire or something else and hung herself up in the panic, hard to say. If you have large wire or chickenwire then I'd recommend changing to 1/2" or smaller hardware cloth. The predators can't reach through it and grab them and it will keep just about everything out except mice. I've seen mice go right through 1/2". And to keep the diggers out you can bury the hardware cloth around the perimeter. Just google predator proofing your chicken coop and you will find lots of good suggestions. And if you do some searching you can get a decent price on hardware cloth. I order mine from the local hardware store in 1oo foot rolls and it brings the price per foot down. Best of luck with your girl.

 

[Nerdc0reRizing]

Thanks so much! The vet offered to drive out to the house and I decided to suck up the cost and have them come out. She is my absolute favorite bird so I just would rather find out for sure if its the flesh or beak because I know the quality of life just won't work out if the beak falls off.

The wire is made with hardware wire 1/4" do you think that's too small? We actually got the smallest possible holes and this is her second beak injury. We do have diggers out but they don't go as far out as I'd prefer and the area under the door is unprotected - we are working on a solution to this ASAP but luckily the raccoon didn't figure out that the door was unprotected from wire yet. We did so much research and got the best hardware cloth with the smallest holes so not sure what else to do.

Thanks so much and i'll let you know what the vet says.

 

[coach723]

1/4" hardware cloth is great. The smaller holes are more secure against predators.
I would just look around your set up to see if there are any gaps or areas that might be a place someone could get hung up, around feeders and doors, roosts, etc. It's surprising sometimes what kind of predicaments they can get themselves into. Hope the injury turns out to be superficial and she recovers. Predator proofing can be a lot of effort, but worth it in the long run.

 

[Nerdc0reRizing]

Hey everyone, vet just left. She said it was the beak however it was more superficial than it looked. She cleaned it with what we used earlier and applied surgical glue. It wasn't as expensive as I feared either.. $90 and she did a full exam as well. Looks like little suri is gonna be okay! Well, as long as she doesn't keep jamming her beak into the hardware cloth.

We're going to spend the weekend further predator proofing the coop and closing any gaps in the run. Thanks everyone for your timely help and responses!!

 

[coach723]

Thanks for the update, and glad she's going to be OK. It's awesome that you have such a good vet available!

 

[Wyorp Rock]