Help!! Found my chicken with coomb half ripped off bleeding!! What to do?

[Hazelwood]

I found one of my chickens with half of her comb ripped off and bleeding pretty good when I went out to collect eggs this morning. I freaked out first and noticed a blood trail coming out of the henhouse. When I looked further things were all knocked over. I found an opossum sleeping in the girls nesting box!!! So,I've locked them out of the house and now freaking out about what to do. How to treat this poor bleeding chicken and eventually what to do with the opossum. Help and Thank you

 

[Sarevan]

Get her seperated treat her bleeding, can use corn starch, flour to stop bleeding. Later clean it up and reassess the injury. Check over all your birds checking for injuries under feathers.


If you can get someone to go take of that possum it knows how to get to your girls now and will bring back others. Do away with it now before it can wipe out your flock.

** call animal control, if you live in town even police, wildlife management. Just make sure it is taken care of away from you and birds**

 

[Hazelwood]

Thank you! I locked the opossum in the henhouse until I can get someone to come off it. I bourght little hen into the house in a small dog crate and have her covered with towels near the baseboard heat. She's so traumatized I'm not sure she's going to make it. I've been reading other posts about this and it looks like I may have to cut and cauterize the comb if she does but there's so much damage. I feel so badly for her!

 

[Sarevan]

Yes can be shocky, so keep her warm and quiet see if she will take some water with electrolytes in it, gatorade, pedialyte, tempt her to eat a bit too. Again make sure you check over her and all the others for hidden injuries.

 

[Hazelwood]

Sareven I can't thank you enough for your quick help and excellent advice! The comb was hanging by a thread so we had to cut it off and cauterize the wound and put a lot of cornstarch on it. Hopefully she will heal and be able to rejoin the flock soon. We have a red bulb in the coop so that will help when we do. We popped that opossum off, it's toast. Really hoping it doesn't have "family" that will come looking for more trouble. Our girls are free rangers so I'll be neurotically checking on them in the hours and days to come. I usually take a flashlight when I go out to shut them up for the night and do a head count. I didn't last night because we had been out late and my husband closed them up otherwise I would have known then.

 

[Sarevan]

I'm glad that ended fairly well for you! None of the others had any injuries? That is very good then. Hope she recovers quickly and will get back to her buddies sfoon.

This just occurred to me, as it was in the nesting box I would pull out all that bedding. They carry fleas, mites, lice and who knows whatelse on its body. I would dust the boxes and check the hens over to make sure they didn't get any hitchhikers. For pain you can give baby asprin crushing it and dissolving in water or have them swallow the pill. I would search for the dosage amount incase I am wrong about 1 baby asprin.


How did it get inside, are you going to have to beef up the fencing?