My Hen needs HELP!!

[Luv_my_babies]

So I'm here again....my parents keep leaving their chicken eating dog at the barn. I have tried to say something but all they say is that they can because they rent the barn (we rent the house). So anyways, today I get a call from my dad saying that he has just found on of my ladies in his water tank. He said he set her in his barn. So when I came home I went to look for her and there she was standing in the corner. So I went and picked her up and found that ALL the feathers from her butt/tail and breast/stomach were GONE!!!

I was wondering what we should do? I have put her in our garage in a kennel with water and food and soft bedding. Temp. is about the same as in the coop but I do have a fan to circulate the air, not directly on her. I did spray her with some betadine. What else should I be doing? She had an egg but it was soft and she isn't really laying down so I tried adding softer things for her to lay on. PLEASE HELP AND LET ME KNOW IF I AM DOING ALL I CAN!!!! By the way she really isn't walking/eating/or drinking, is this because she is VERY tired? I think she hasn't laid down for a long time, since 4p.m. for sure.

 

[flewdacoop]

make her comfortable and make sure the dog is not around so she is not stressed out

 

[froggiesheins]

So far you are doing good stuff. Keep her isolated, cool and give lots of TLC. Is there any broken skin? She is for sure STRESSED out so needs time to recover. Give her vitamin water, high energy foods like eggs or mealworms and keep a close eye on her...

 

[Luv_my_babies]

There is no broken skin that I can see. She just has alot of missing feathers and wet feathers. The area where the feathers are missing is VERY red though. When I added more comfortable bedding she finally relaxed and fell asleep. She also laid a soft egg since we put her in the cage, should I be concerned about this?

 

[froggiesheins]

Glad to hear she is laying down. The soft shelled egg is probably brought on from all the stress. Chickens stress out easily, and the dog was BIGTIME stress!
Keep doing what you have been doing, watch her sore skin for infection. Don't know about Betadine and chickens tho. Maybe try Neosporin type ointment. Just make sure it has no pain reliever in it. LOTS OF TLC......

 

[Luv_my_babies]

I forgot to ask, does almost drowning(yeah right) cause feathers to fall out/?. Also my kids check for feathers in water and there were none. We will have to look better in the daylight though.

 

[froggiesheins]

She almost drowned??? I am confused now...

 

[Luv_my_babies]

Well I really don't know what happened to my girl

. My parents are in denial that there dog is killing our chickens even though they actually saw her kill our favorite(Biscuit). So I am going by what my dad has said. He called me and told me that he just saved my chicken from drowning in his horses water tanks, but when I got home I saw that almost half of her feathers were missing. So I am going with my gut and saying that she didn't lose all those feathers from almost drowning. But I personally didn't see what happened, I wished though. By the way, there dog has killed 11 of our chickens but who cares they don't want her to shed in there house. Who leaves there dog alone in a barn when they don't even live there, your guess is as good as mine.

Sorry so confusing.....

 

[froggiesheins]

One BIG problem here.....LOOSE DOGS AND CHICKENS DO NOT MIX!!! Your folks are being so disrespectful of your pets. You might have to built a sturdier coop/run for them so the dogs cannot get at them. Is there a top on your coop/run or do you let them free range???

 

[jak2002003]

I suspect the dog did attacked you chicken and pulled out its feathers, and the chicken jumped into the water tank to escape - clever chicken!

Maybe this post is a bit late, but I would advise putting you chicken in a dark box for a few hours to calm down. This seems to work really well with birds in shock because they are in the dark they don't get even more stressed by things they see going on around them. Make sure the box has some ventilation and his in a cool place.

I use this trick if a bird hits my window and is stunned. Also I had a small owl that was being attacked by birds. It seemed almost dead, laying on its back and very floppy. I left it in the 'magic' box until evening....opened it up and the owl flew off very strong.

I would advise you to make your chickens a big run that is dog proof!. Keep them lock in there when you are not about. When you want to let them out to free range, you should put he dog on a chain.

Sorry to hear about all your chicken dog problems and I hope you chicken recovers!

If she does the feathers will grow back really quickly!