neighbor's dog got in, attacked my top hen

deepbluesea

Crowing
7 Years
Jul 14, 2014
743
1,630
337
coastal NC
Damn. Sorry for starting with a swear word; I'm angry and sad. Cleo, my six-year-old PBR, was just attacked by our neighbor's golden retriever, who jumped the fence that was partially blown down by the hurricane. I'd propped it up until I can get someone out to fix it and the neighbor was keeping him one the other section of his yard. But that didn't work. I've got some plywood out there and locked him in the other section now.

She's pretty torn up on her side and a bit of her back. Fat and muscle are showing. The bleeding has pretty much stopped. I don't see any punctures, but I've also not gone over her extensively. No entrail or ammonia smells.

I've got her inside in a big dog crate on towels. She's got water with nutridrench and some wet food. Definitely in shock. I'm going to go get some aspirin--what's the best way to get that in her? Powdered and in water in a syringe? I'm going to hold off for a bit with the saline/vetictryin (sp)--I want her to be quiet and warm for a bit first. Does that make sense?

I managed to heal her from fly strike last year, and another one from a hawk attack a couple of years ago, so I'm hoping I can do it with this too. But realistically I don't think so. I've never had to euthanize before. Off to search that now.
 
You are handling exactly as I would. Allow her to rest a bit undisturbed. If there are no internal injuries, she may very well heal. Chickens tend to heal well from skin lacerations. Healing is from 'the outside in' so keeping the wound soft with topical antibiotics is generally a good idea. Good luck, and I hope that she does well.
 
I'm sorry :hugs
Vet care, if possible, is always best.

I would hold off on the aspirin for now, just make water available. Dogs also squeeze, so she may have internal injuries.
If she's in shock, place her in a quiet warm place.
When she is more alert, give her a good examination to see how extensive the damage is. Flush the wounds with saline, then apply your Vetericyn.
If you treated FlyStrike and hawk attack, then you have knowledge of wound care - you got this.
When you have time and want to share, post some photos.

Hopefully she will pull through, but sometimes a bird is not going to make it. It's good that you are looking at this realistically and preparing for the worst.
Here's some information on euthanasia, as you will see in the thread, there are many different methods. I prefer to use the broomstick method as mentioned in Post#6 of the thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/euthanasia-information.1195265/

Keep us posted on how she's doing.
 
Thank you--that's helpful. There's no vet around here that will treat chickens, but I have a friend at the marine lab who treats all sorts of creatures, so maybe I'll ask him to stop by. Fingers crossed.
Hi there deep blue sea. I’m sorry I can’t remember where in nc you are, but I’ve heard from a number of people that “paws and claws” on oleander in Wilmington has a vet that sees chickens. I haven’t had any experiences with them but have heard first hand good things.

Id also hold off on the aspirin as @Wyorp Rock stated, because of it’s anticlotting properties.
If there are internal injuries you don’t want to disturb the platelets from clinging to each other.

Best wishes with your girl.:hugs
 
Sorry about your injured chicken. I hope that she recovers, and you have received good advice. Our golden retriever hurt 3 of my young pullets who flew over our 4 ft fence into our yard. Two of them with more feather loss, recovered well, were in shock for an hour, but then later were alert, eating and drinking, and recovered quickly. The 3rd one had no obvious feather loss or puncture wounds, but apparently was squeezed or scared to death. She died in about an hour.

We had ordered a shock collar earlier, just to teach him not to bother the chickens. I was not a fan of their use. With the dead bird’s corpse on the ground, we only had to shock twice, and he never even looked at our chickens again, and taught our younger dogs to not go near them. We put the shock collar away. As out chickens aged, they stopped flying over, but we later had a couple of yard chickens, and have never lost another grown chicken. A couple of chicks who escaped fencing did get taken, but our dogs love to hunt birds.
 
Thanks to both of you--I appreciate the kind words. I wouldn't mind a shock collar on old Parker. Though it's not really his fault--he never gets walked or anything so he's likely bored stiff. And I should have pushed harder to get the fence fixed. It's hard to get contractors to do small things like that--I've had a time finding one to replace my missing shingles because there's so much major construction to do.

She's still here, looks alert and drank some of the water/nutridrench when I brought it to her. No food yet, but that's understandable. I'm going to wait another couple of hours before I examine her more closely. I figure it's a good sign she's hanging in.
 
So, she was still alive when I checked on her before work. Drank some more when I fed it to her, but no food. I sprayed vetrycin and blu kote on the wounds I could reach last night. If she's still there when I get home I'll take her into the bathroom and do a full assessment/treatment. If she's worses, I'll deal with that, too.
 

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