HELP!!! Two of my chickens were attacked by dogs!! PICS ADDED!!

[BarkerChickens]

This morning, two dogs (miniature pinschers) got into our back yard and attached two of our hens! Both have a few puncture wounds and really bad wounds at their tails (where it looks like the dogs try to pull the hens by their tail feathers and the tail started to separate away form the body). I don't think they have internal injuries since the dogs are small and can't get their mouths around the chickens. I cleaned them up with hydrogen peroxide and will put them on antibiotics. I have Aureomycin (chlorotetracycline). Will that work or do I need a different antibiotic? What else should I do? They need stitches, but I don't know the first thing about giving stitiches, plus I want to find the owner of the dogs and make them pay for the vet bill! Please help! Thanks!

 

[dlhunicorn]

Your birds are in shock more than likely so put electrlytes/vit in their waterer for that ...keep them separated in a dark, quiet. temp stable and clean room (not dry and dusty tho).
You need to FLUSH (copiously!) those punctures with a sterile saline solution to remove debris and any loose tissue (you can make this yourself by boiling 1/4 tsp salt in a quart of water for five minutes) and then you can apply the triple AB creme ...
Same with tail. Unless the areas you wish to "suture" are suitable for this ( an remember that bird skin is very thin and often sutrues do not hold well) then I would suggest after you have clean, flushed, applied betadine or triple antibiotic that you examine it to see if a "feather suturing" might not be a better idea... )this is where you take two feathers on opposite sides of the are you wish to "close" and pull them together crosswise and use a wee bit of supergle to glue the feathers together> essesentially keeping the area closed with the pulling together of the feathers) You will need to keep the punctures open though as you will need to flush those daily

 

[BarkerChickens]

Thank you so much! We used iodine clean it out and put neosporin on the wounds. Unfortunately our chickens are molting, so I don't think "feather sutures" will work (however, it is GREAT idea that I will keep in mind should anything like this happen again....hopefully not!). One has a "flap" of skin pulled back and I am not sure how to remove it, but I removed any debris I saw and cleaned up the girls as best we could. I didn't think about flushing the wounds daily...great idea. I will be sure to do that! The two that are injured are in the house now in a large dog kennel. I put antibiotic powder in their water as well. I just hope they heal up fine.

 

[BarkerChickens]

Update on my hens! And a few questions!

Bandit is doing pretty well. She has NO feathers on her back and several shallow bite wounds. We have been cleaning the wounds regularly with iodine and the aureomycin in water (with a irrigation syringe). They also have aureomycin in their water. She is eating and drinking normal, normal to occasionally watery poops and active. We have them inside so we decided to let them walk around to get some exercise in. She even decided to lay an egg on our door mat in the entry way (I know not to eat it till she is off the meds)! I think Bandit will pull through. A few of her wounds have bubbles (like blisters). We partially lanced one and it is clear watery stuff inside (plasma?) similar to when adults get sunburn blisters. We left the rest since they don't appear to be infected. What causes this? Is this normal?

Frenchie is the one I am most worried about! She is molting really bad, which is one reason she got attacked oppose to other chickens (she can't fly right now...no wing feathers..just pin feathers all over). She's already lethargic from the molt...now this! She has a big chunk on the left side of her anus (where a butt cheek would be, I guess) where the skin was pulled off. The anus tissue and muscle are not damaged! It looks like a dog tooth got between the skin and fat layer, but not anything much deeper (luckily!). There is now about a 2 or 2.5 in diameter spot with NO skin!! Just fat! Will this heal ok even though it can't scab over like more typical wounds?? We are keeping it clean. It hurts her of course. She limps quite a bit when she walks, but, according to her, she has be go wherever Bandit goes! She'll sometimes hold her leg up when she is standing (her leg is not injured as far as we can tell...it appears to be from the "back side" injury). We kept her in the cage and she kept crying out for her "sister". It doesn't bother her enough to not follow Bandit, so we just gave in. She clearly feels better having Bandit by her side. It is only in our living room and we are present. She won't squat much...she tries to sleep standing. I think her injuries aren't serious enough (with proper treatment such as antibiotics, etc) to lose her in normal cases, but will her molting make it harder for her to recover? She is eating and drinking normal and has healthy normal looking poops. She just looks so exhausted and sore!

 

[mrs.67]

I can give you some advice on the dogs.

I have a min pin and they are escape artist. I love my dog but he is a pain in the rear. I am not sure how they got in but you can be sure they are going to try and come back.

They dig super fast, they run super fast and they have a one track mind , so even if killing the birds were not their main goal, the chase would be exciting enough to make them want more.

Hopefully you have a good realtionship with your neighbors because people have a way of believing their dogs would never do that. Its going to take work on their part to make sure it doesn't happen again.

I hate to sound mean and I am sure I am going to make someone mad but I shot my own dog in the rear with a BB gun, just enough to say OWWWW because he would not leave my birds alone.

They have a fenced in coop and he would run back and forth , jumping on the fence. We had to bury the fence under ground quite a bit so he wouldn't dig.

What really cured him was one day even with all our precautions he did get in and our HUGE rooster Merv the Perv (don't ask, long story) chased him and that was that.

So go to your neighbors, have a talk and if necessary reintroduce your self to the good ole Red Ryder BB Gun

 

[BarkerChickens]

Mean?!?! We also took a BB gun to one of the dogs to scare it away, but unfortunately we were out of BBs. Many of our neighbors said we were too nice by keeping the dogs alive since they attacked our chickens. I personally just wanted them gone. One ran off before we could catch it, the other one I caught while it was chasing another hen. We tried to find the owner, but they may be strays since no one can find who owns the dogs. A neighbor of ours took the one I caught and was looking for the owners as well. I just wanted to get them away and save my girls!

How they got in? The dogs pulled back the wire fencing we have at the bottom of our wrought iron gate. My DH (to-be) is going to buy a steel fence screen and weld it to the bottom to prevent little dogs from getting in ever again! Meanwhile, our chickens are locked in their pen (which has fencing down into the ground) and won't be free ranging again until we know for sure that the yard is secure and even then, we are changing some of our "rules" regarding when they are out. Also, if our dogs had been outside (they sleep in our room), it wouldn't have happened. Two of them would have protected the chickens, the other would have come and whined at our window as soon as the dogs got back there.

It is funny you mentioned your rooster. We said we should get one. We just worry about our neighbor. He is a police officer and works the late shifts, so he would not appreciate a noisy rooster in the morning.

 

[Guinea Goonie]

Kill the dog you have and put in next to the pin. The other one will find it and more than likely leave. I am serious, a 5 cent shell is cheaper than the medications you will have to give your chickens. If you can not do it, find someone that will.

 

[mrs.67]

LOL oh my goodness , didn't they make a movie about a police officer living next door that sort made his own neighborhood rules. LOL for some reason that strikes me as funny... my rooster doesn't realize we have a extra hour of sleep now ....not so funny.

I see alot of min pins in the paper for adoption, they can be so high strung.

How are your girls? I had a cat get ahold of my Bantam Roo once.
It was touch and go but he fully recovered. So my best wishes to you.

Since we are on the same page with the BB's make sure to keep them in stock , I have become fully aware chickens are just about on the bottome of the food chain.

 

[BarkerChickens]

We don't have any other guns in the house other than the BB, so shooting the dog (for any purpose other than "OWW", isn't an option), but trust me (!!), that gun has BBs loaded it now! As for killing the dog, my DH-to-be highly considered it. Our local animal shelter tries to adopt out as many dogs as possible, but has no tolerance for dogs who live "livestock" (which they include chickens, I guess). We may do that if it comes back. We are so spoiled with our dogs, cat and chickens all getting along (my cat likes to hang out (and sleep) in the chicken run), but we thought our yard was secure from other dogs. We never thought about small dogs! Now we are!!

Our cop neighbor likes to make his own rules too, but unfortunately, he can make our lives miserable and his dog (lab/chow mix) would eat our chickens, so I will keep peace and protect my chickens without a rooster....for now.

The chickens? They are both alive this morning! I think Bandit will be ok. Frenchie..well it depends on how skin heals over exposed fat (no scab) and how her body handles molting (hard!) and healing all at once. We are doing our best to keep the wounds clean and have them on an antibiotic water as a precaution. No flies in the house either, though we keep an eye out just in case (don't want maggots!). I just worry 'cause I heard chickens are fragile when it comes to injuries. It's been more than 48 hours, no infections, etc., so hopefully that means they will both be fine. I hope the skin grows back over exposed subcutaneous fat exposed on Frenchie's rear end though.

:|

 

[Guinea Goonie]

The reason you will not get an animal shelter to except a dog that has a documented complaint that they have attacked live stock is that they too will have to kill it. Since this is an expensive ordeal for them, becuase now days they have to have a vet do this in many counties. This is for humane puposes. Go hence and use your constitutional rights and buy a low cost varmit rifle. ANY one who has live stock should have one. I am not talking about getting a dirty harry 44 mag, I am talking about a Wally World 22 lr bolt action that you can lock up. Consider it, you may have a night when the hens are going crazy because a wessel or a racoon or a possum is in the hen house. BTY ground hogs will not harm chickens, but they are a nuisance for many people. Do not get me wrong, I have two farm dogs. An old corgi that loves the chickens and a red healer that is learning to love them, with a stern hand I may add. Dogs can be a real benefit to help you control pedators to your flock, including other dogs. I do not go to the barn at night without my healer, that is what I feed him for.