Minor injuries- dog chewed on bantam hen

[Wyorp Rock]

As the title says, one of my bantam hens got chewed on by the dog. She has a small wound on her back. I bathed her and looked for more wounds and I couldn’t find any more that broke the skin. She wasn’t chewed on for long at all, I went out and stopped it as soon as I heard her calls. She’s acting like nothing happened- eagerly accepted food, making some noises, no gasping or anything. Just a little less skittish than usual, which I understand could mean she’s in shock.

The wound (bottom two pics are most recent):
View attachment 2528907View attachment 2528908View attachment 2528909View attachment 2528910
Full body pic to see how big the wound is.
View attachment 2528914

It’s been cleaned with rubbing alcohol and bactine spray.

To make things more complicated, she has ascites and I highly suspect my flock carries Marek’s disease, which can come out in times of stress. I want to make her recovery as stress free as possible to try and prevent this.
She isn’t a very friendly hen, so I don’t want to keep her in the house if I can, since I don’t think she’ll like that. She’s second in the pecking order (I have four other bantam hens) and all the others in the flock are smaller than her (the top hen is a serama mix).
What should I do now? Is there anything else I should do for the wound? I’m going to routinely spray it with bactine, if that sounds like a good idea. Should I put her out with the flock once she fully dries? I have the ability to observe them for as long as necessary today.

I’m going to add a strange observation to this thread- when I was running towards the coop, where Olive was cornered by the dog, I noticed that the three other hens were all around the entrance of the coop, looking in. The lowest ranking and most skittish hen was nearest the coop. Their tails were all fanned, and they could definitely see the danger. So why were they nearby, instead of hidden somewhere or up high? All my bantams (except Olive) are good flyers, and one of them flew over a shed once because she got startled by a (different) rowdy dog. I don’t know if this is a common occurrence, but it was strange to me.

Glad to hear she's doing o.k. and that you put her back with the flock.
I was going to suggest that. Just check on her wounds daily, keep them cleaned an re-apply the ointment.

The fanned tails is an alert. Why they didn't run...I don't know...but my thoughts would be they could "see" the danger (the dog) and were keeping tabs on where he was so they could take flight if necessary. But that's just a guess based on some behaviors I've seen.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Glad to hear she's doing o.k. and that you put her back with the flock.
I was going to suggest that. Just check on her wounds daily, keep them cleaned an re-apply the ointment.

The fanned tails is an alert. Why they didn't run...I don't know...but my thoughts would be they could "see" the danger (the dog) and were keeping tabs on where he was so they could take flight if necessary. But that's just a guess based on some behaviors I've seen.

Thanks for the information! I’m relieved that I’m doing it right so far.
That’s what I was thinking. Though I had expected at least one of them to be on the roof or crouched in a nearby shrub.

 

[Lollychicken]

Good to see she is looking better.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Picture from Sunday.

Today (after antiseptic spray).

It definitely looks less swollen.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Olive herself.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Yesterday.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

An update- Olive has completely recovered! There is no sign of her wound. She’s even growing back her feathers.

If anyone with a chicken of a similar injury encounters this thread, I’ll detail what was done for Olive below.

Right after the attack, I put her in the bathtub, filled it up with a few inches of warm water, and got her wet. Then I got a plastic tub, filled it up so it covered her legs, and made sure she was thoroughly wet. I carefully went through her feathers to make sure I didn’t miss any wounds. When I found the wound, I repeatedly rinsed it out with the warm water. The wound was cleaned with rubbing alcohol and sprayed with bactine (antiseptic spray). Olive was dried, offered food and water (which she took) and put back with the flock without any pecking order issues. I continued to use rubbing alcohol and bactine for a few days, then I just used bactine twice a day. After two weeks, bactine only needed to be used once a day.

 

[Lollychicken]

An update- Olive has completely recovered! There is no sign of her wound. She’s even growing back her feathers.

If anyone with a chicken of a similar injury encounters this thread, I’ll detail what was done for Olive below.

Right after the attack, I put her in the bathtub, filled it up with a few inches of warm water, and got her wet. Then I got a plastic tub, filled it up so it covered her legs, and made sure she was thoroughly wet. I carefully went through her feathers to make sure I didn’t miss any wounds. When I found the wound, I repeatedly rinsed it out with the warm water. The wound was cleaned with rubbing alcohol and sprayed with bactine (antiseptic spray). Olive was dried, offered food and water (which she took) and put back with the flock without any pecking order issues. I continued to use rubbing alcohol and bactine for a few days, then I just used bactine twice a day. After two weeks, bactine only needed to be used once a day.

Good to hear she has fully recovered

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Olive today.

 

[Lollychicken]

View attachment 2558447Olive today.

She's so beautiful