How long do you keep a chicken separated while healing from a wound?

[kpchicks]

Hello there! I’m new, but have kept backyard chickens for 5 years now. Yesterday night we had an attack. I think it was raccoons. One chicken was taken and another was injured. The injured chicken had a large patch of skin hanging down from the breast down to the leg. A surgeon friend of mine came over to patch her up. There were no internal injuries and all day yesterday and even after the patching up the chicken was behaving completely normally. I put her into a large box with bedding, food, and water. My question is, how long should I keep her in there? I’m worried she will get depressed and there isn’t much room to walk around. Any other suggestions to give her the best chance to survive this? Thank you in advance.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I'm sorry for your loss and this injury. How fortunate you are to have a friend with these skills! We have some experts here that are very good with injuries. Let's see what they recommend:

@WyorpRock
@casportpony
@Eggcessive
@azygous

 

[Eggcessive]

Does she have stitches? Pictures? Instead of bedding I would place her on puppy pads or a towel so she doesn’t get dust or bedding into the wound. If you don’t have a fly issue in your coop, I would place her inside a wire dog crate with food and water, so she could be close to the other chickens. If her wound is closed, you could take her on some supervised visits. I would keep her in the crate until the stitches or staples are out. If there is feather loss, she may be pecked on any red bare areas, so when she is back with them, BluKote sometimes can be good to use on bare spots. It is very staining so don’t get it on your clothes.

Basically, I would let her be with the flock as much as possible, but not be returned to them full time until her wound is closed and healing.

So sorry for your loss, but glad you could get care for this hen. Make sure that the raccoon cannot get into your coop again because it will come back.

 

[glassdragonfly]

Hi! and

 

[azygous]

Your surgeon pal did the biggest job for you already - treating the wound. Did they also instruct you on daily care of the wound? That's also important. But your hen will heal up very quickly since the wound has been closed with stitches.

Your question pertains to an issue that is actually nearly as important to wound healing as the initial treatment - keeping the patient's spirits up. I return all my wound patients to the flock immediately. However, they are placed in a protective enclosure separate from the others yet in full view.

At night, I take the patient from the enclosure and place them on the perch in the coop so they can roost with the others. In the morning, they are placed back into the protective enclosure. This continues until they are fully healed.

I've found that an injured or sick chicken recovers much faster if kept with the flock, and there are little to no re-integration issues.