I'm so upset and exhausted.
I hate raccoons.
A stealthy raccoon attacked our coop last night. If my schnauzer didn't hear the chickens screaming and alert us, we wouldn't have been able to chase him off. We ran outside, to find him grabbing at a chicken from a hole he dug between hardware cloth and my coop bottom.
We tried to secure everything up and went back inside. Not 15 minutes later, he was back and was able to get in again and grabbed another chicken. We stayed up until 3 am outside to make sure he didn't come back.
All of the chickens are alive, but one (my white leghorn) is injured and disoriented. She can't stand on her leg and is laying down, occasionally sleeping. She's got some cuts on her leg, but it doesn't appear like she lost much blood at all. We're cleaning her up and am going to put Neosporin on her cut, or Blue Kote. I'm going to bring her inside tonight.
Do I give diluted asprin in her water? Arnica? She's not eating or drinking right now. Do I wrap the leg with vetwrap? What I can see of the leg doesn't appear to be broken. I have a feeling the raccoon pulled on it quite hard.
I'm going to have to seal this place up like Fort Knox. My landlord won't allow us to kill any animals on the property - nor are we allowed to live trap anything.
I hate raccoons.
A stealthy raccoon attacked our coop last night. If my schnauzer didn't hear the chickens screaming and alert us, we wouldn't have been able to chase him off. We ran outside, to find him grabbing at a chicken from a hole he dug between hardware cloth and my coop bottom.
We tried to secure everything up and went back inside. Not 15 minutes later, he was back and was able to get in again and grabbed another chicken. We stayed up until 3 am outside to make sure he didn't come back.
All of the chickens are alive, but one (my white leghorn) is injured and disoriented. She can't stand on her leg and is laying down, occasionally sleeping. She's got some cuts on her leg, but it doesn't appear like she lost much blood at all. We're cleaning her up and am going to put Neosporin on her cut, or Blue Kote. I'm going to bring her inside tonight.
Do I give diluted asprin in her water? Arnica? She's not eating or drinking right now. Do I wrap the leg with vetwrap? What I can see of the leg doesn't appear to be broken. I have a feeling the raccoon pulled on it quite hard.
I'm going to have to seal this place up like Fort Knox. My landlord won't allow us to kill any animals on the property - nor are we allowed to live trap anything.
