Rooster injured by coyote

[Dave Z]

Hi,

Newbie here, trying to get some tips on how to treat my rooster, who was injured by a coyote. According to the feed store I got him from, he's an Ameracauna, (although I've come to understand that the generic Easter Egger is probably more accurate). He's almost a year old. On Wednesday, a coyote got in the yard and Bubba (he's a big bird) took him on. He held him off for some time, long enough for all the hens to find a safe place. Before I could get out there, the battle apparently raged all over the yard. I found 5 areas with a lot of feathers on the ground.

Bubba was exhausted and beat up pretty bad. He could hardly walk, kind of staggered a lot. I suspect injury to his right leg. He lost a lot of feathers, basically has no tail. He has some swelling around his left eye. The eye itself looks fine, but I'm not sure he's seeing out of it. He came to the door and we let him in and he collapsed. He regained some strength in a couple of hours and we put him out with the ladies.

Since then, he's doing a lot better. He is not crowing, but he's walking better, even flapping his wings a little, but he seems to have some problem with his neck, making it hard to bend down for water or food. Also, there may be some injury to his beak. He had what looked like blood and tissue in his beak. Don't know how it could be his, so maybe from the coyote? Anyway, he can't seem to fully close his beak.

All this means that he has eaten almost nothing for two days. He didn't seem to be able to drink either so I held him and used a teaspoon to trickle some water into his beak, which he swallowed. I can keep that up for a couple of days, hoping whatever injury will heal. I tried putting some bread dipped in milk into his beak, but he didn't swallow that. He acts hungry, but unable to eat.

So any tips? I thought about getting some Ensure and trickling that down his throat so he'd get some nourishment, but maybe there's something better?

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Dave

 

[annek]

Can't help a whole lot but how about getting some vitamins in him with the poly vi sol without iron that they say to give to chicks. At least he would get something other than plain water. I have seen gatorade recommended too.

What a brave boy, you would have lost a lot of the flock without him I bet. I hope he makes it.

 

[Chic Chick]

That's a good Ameraucana rooster you have there. Mine had a standoff with a german shepherd back in March and he still looks all scruffy on the neck and chest and his tail feathers are just starting to grow back.
How does his beak look - is it broken or is it crushed? Can you straighten it otherwise if he survives the trauma of this attack he'll starve to death if he can't eat. Meanwhile moisten the feed and spoon feed him to keep up his strength. Massage his neck to help him swallow if you have to.
A hero like that deserves every bit of help to save him so he can protect his flock again.
Good luck with him.

 

[Dave Z]

Managed to get some milk-soaked bread down his throat today. If I get it in his mouth, he'll swallow it. The hard part is getting it in there - he fights me, he doesn't like me messing with his beak. The inside of his beak is looking better, it was all crusty.

I'm beginning to wonder if the main problem has something to do with his vision. There is a wound behind his left eye, but I can't tell how bad it is (he has those Americauna sideburns). The eye itself looks good and the pupil reacts to light, but I suspect vision problems. He has some vision, because he can make his way around the yard and up the ramp into the coop, and when he sees food he goes right for it, but when he gets to within an inch or so of the food, he stops, almost as if he can't see it anymore. Strange.

Anyway, I saw a post on another thread that recommended using a syringe to get food and water into him. Picked one up today. We'll see how that goes.

 

[nnbreeder]

Use a piece of soft tubing on the end of the syringe and you can put feed and water right into the crop. If you just try to squirt it down his throat he could asperate on it.

 

[grandmachicken]

Right now he's probably suffering from a lot of inflammation, which should go down in a couple of days. OK to give him a baby aspirin, crushed and mixed with water in a syringe. If he has any puncture wounds, he may need antibiotics, which would require a trip to the vet.

Good luck, it sounds like he has made good progress so far...

Christi

 

[Emmanuel89]

The duck named “Rooster” thinks that he is a chicken. He was raised with two hens and, when we adopted the three friends at the shelter, was quite confused. He takes good care of his hens, making sure they find ponds to bathe in (though they don’t want to bathe in the water - they prefer dust baths - he pushes them in). He finds them good things to eat and then eats them himself to demonstrate that they are good, urging them to join him with his “tasty” call, which they do not understand. He herds them about with his mallardly mastery using words and gestures they understand as well as those used by real roosters. He also sits on their eggs and defends them.

His inability to communicate with his hens is a problem, but nothing so severe as to break his love for each other. They are his hens and he is their rooster - er, duck.

He also take care of the other chickens. He has a special friendship with Scuttle and will treat him like a hen. Ducks can’t tell the difference easily between roosters and hens.

We love “Rooster” almost as much as the hens and real roosters do. He stands guard at night over the entire flock like a rooster ought to, taking shifts with Rodney and Scuttle (the other roosters are too tired to take a shift). Like a rooster, he sings them songs to let them know everything’s alright, or alert them that something strange is happening. He announces when we come by, and a few of the chickens stagger up to us to see if we’ve brought them a treat.

Any time two species make friendship or love each other, they learn how to talk to each other or otherwise serve each others’ needs. When humans adopt a pet, either domesticating a wild critter or taking in a domestic one, we teach them some of our language so they can help us, too.

All our birds know how to “go home,” “find your rooster,” “hide,” and “come to the coop!” We teach them several dozen commands. Some are very friendly, and enjoy being picked up. Because, when they are young, we help them if they are injured in front of the entire baby flock, they know to come to us when they need help.

Yesterday, some of our geese got attacked by a coyote. The coyote lost, and now looks for mice to eat, but one of the geese got a scratch on her leg. She ran up to us and wanted to be held, so we told her to give us her leg for us to inspect. We told her it was alright and gave her some treats. She rested for most of the day, and her flock kept her company.

Like our “Rooster” duck, all animals understand more words of another species’ language than they can speak. Though we could not express ourselves in “goose” we could express ourselves in english, and she understood, giving us her leg and holding still. She could tell us something was wrong with her and we understood. The duck can tell his hens about the joys of bathing and… well, perhaps some things can’t be understood.
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[threehorses]

PM me. There are a few injured birds on here - you might check out their posts, too.

 

[Dave Z]

Update.

He seems a little better in some ways and worse in others. He's still not eating or drinking well, so I'm feeding him water with a syringe. A few drops, let him swallow, a few more drops. If I get food in his mouth, he'll swallow, but it isn't easy - he doesn't want me messing with his mouth and puts up a fight. Still, I've been able to get some bread and some mealworms in him. He has pecked half-heartedly at some mash and eaten a lttle scratch on his own, but is losing weight pretty fast. His crop is pretty much always empty.

On the other hand, he crowed once yesterday and has his way with one of the hens.

I still suspect he has vision problems but time will tell, I suppose.

Thanks for your tips. I've found good info on some of the other threads too.

Dave

 

[threehorses]

Injuries. Did you treat them?

On the beak - can he move it? On the food - please don't feed him bread and mealyworms. He wouldn't eat these as a normal diet without losing weight, he'll lose weight now on them.

Food: what does he normally eat? Pellets/crumbles only, or grains and pellets? He needs to eat stuff that will pretty much fall apart on its own with any water added, something that has nutrition for him. That means pellets only. No bread, no mealy worms, no milk. If he won't eat pellets, water them down until he can. He probably can't at this point because of his beak inflammation.

If he can't, mix them with the water you put in his beak til it's liquid but has the pellet stuff in it. (Shake before giving.) You can also mix a boiled egg yolk in there. Refrigerate it, take out only what you need to feed him.

Because he's in stress, you'll want him to have probiotics to help him better digest his food. You can give him a half teaspoon of plain yogurt per every fourth cup of the water/food he gets.

Incidentally, eye injuries sometimes cause a lack of vision for a good couple of weeks at least. Birds who can't see won't be as likely to eat. that might be part of his reluctance. My thoughts is that instead he's out of nutrition so he's too weak to bother with more nutrition, which is where you puttin gnutrition in the water comes in. The nutrition I mentioned above, NOT ensure please.

If you want to give added vitamins and minerals, I'd recommend one of the vitamins recommended on here (like polyvisol or whatever). Or a package of chicken vitamins/electrolytes.

Please make sure he gets some food in him. He's not going to be able to get food with the other stronger chickens around.

Hope this helps. It's good he still wants some hen-action.