Huge fox attacked

[BugStalker]

Rhode island red, about 4 years old? Bit by fox on tail. Panting, nibbling on food a bit, tooth wounds.

 

[rjohns39]

Rhode island red, about 4 years old? Bit by fox on tail. Panting, nibbling on food a bit, tooth wounds.

Disinfect the wound and then use an antibiotic ointment and blue kote.

 

[BugStalker]

Thanks, the vets are all closed. I'm going to try neosporin WITHOUT pain relief. What kind of disinfectant would be best? I don't think peroxide, right? Rubbing alcohol?

 

[Eggsoteric]

I like to use betadine or clorhexidine; you can also use gentle iodine. I soak the bird first in warm water and gently scrub the area. Pat dry and apply a generous amount of neosporin. Depending on the wounds, I'm likely to repeat this daily (sometimes more than once a day). I tend to keep the bird separated indoors from the rest of the flock until the wounds heal over to prevent pecking or fly strike. The gentle iodine and betadine you can typically find at a drug or farm store. If regular iodine, mix with water until the color is "tea" like. Alcohol may burn. Best of luck.

 

[BugStalker]

I'm worried her tail might be broken. It's pretty loose. I'm trying to keep her around 80 degrees. The thermometer says 80, but she seems a little cool. Should i tube her some warm water?

 

[BugStalker]

Holding her in my lap seems to have helped. She's holding one leg out a bit and walks shakily, though I haven't let her up very much. She pooped something resembling water.

 

[BugStalker]

I warmed some spring water to use, first, and she didn't like it. I put some neosporin on, and found the blukote expired, so asked someone to get me betadine and saline, as well as more neosporin. Couldn't find an open store selling blukote. She liked the saline, better. I used a piece of gauze to apply the neosporin and left it on the wound like a bandage, for now. Anyone know how to tell if expired blukote is safe to use?

I think the animal was actually too big to be a fox. It looked more like a small deer. Someone suggested it was a red coyote.

 

[BugStalker]

She's had a seisure.

 

[BugStalker]

She slept a lot. She ate and drank what I put in her beak, but if it was too large a piece, she'd let it drop instead of trying to break it up. Her droppings were looking better, but the last one smelled bad. I think somehow her intestines got infected.

Before this happened, she had been sick twice, once after deworming early in the Spring, and then a sour crop. She hadn't regained all of her weight, even with extra protein, because she kept laying an egg every day, at 4 years old, even when we tried lengthening her roosting time in a dark room. I think she was a production breed. A short time before the attack, the others started pecking her away from the food. I didn't know if it was because I had been giving her protein feed with some yogurt separately, or if they were pushing her away for another reason. I was worried her crop problem was trying to come back, or some other problem, because they can sometimes tell those things and change behavior before we can.

I was learning how to clean as I was going along. It's important to really soak the wounds with saline or epsom salt water. I was having trouble with one trying to scab over, but the tear by the tail is the most likely suspect for external infection. It was just too much.

She and I had a special bond. People noticed it. They asked if I had hatched her, and was the first face she saw, but I didn't and wasn't. When she was young, I trained her some things without even using treats, she just liked me to pay attention to her, and always kept an eye on me. I'm at least glad I could say goodbye. I was looking at her, talking to her, because it comforted her, and she turned her head and opened both eyes at me and just looked right in mine, like she was saying something, then went back to sleep.

I was hoping she would pull through, but she wasn't in the best shape going into this, and this was the worst wound I've attempted on my own.

At least she didn't suffer too long.

 

[bobbi-j]

I'm sorry you lost your bird. You did the best you could for her, and I think she somehow knew that.