To forestall any anxiety, he survived and made a full recovery.
This is Tex:
As you can see, he is almost unfathomably handsome. I'm sure my ducks would forsake my drakes if they thought they had a chance with Tex.
It should be noted my staunch conviction that Tex is perfect in all ways in no way indicates bias in my opinion of his excellence.
Tex is also my flock protector, which is what led to my least favorite day in 2022. I wanted to remember what happened, but immediately afterwords I was too rattled to write anything down. So I drew it.
I am not a stranger to exaggeration for effect, but I can not exaggerate how much blood was everywhere. All it took was one well placed bite from the dog, and my buff goose was a red goose. Now, I am the type who can agonize for ages over toothpaste brands, and sometimes decisions can leave me paralyzed. But luckily I'm very quick in emergencies. There's actually something weirdly calming about emergencies in that everything boils down to two decisions; do or die. In this case all I knew was I needed to stop the flow of blood or my bird would die.
Tex is sweet and generally isn't overly opposed to being picked up, but he'd just attacked a dog and was amped up from that, plus I'm sure my panic didn't help matters because he ran from me. His movement increased the rate of blood flow, so I threw open the garage door and did my best to herd him in there for an easy grab as quickly as possible. It was awful, watching the blood fall and knowing chasing him wasn't helping matters, but at the same time having to chase him. I thought I'd kill him before I ever managed to get hands on him. Again, I can't overstate how much and how quickly the blood was coming. He seemed to have been punctured in the exact place I would have used a knife for butchering, and the only other time I'd seen blood flow so freely was when I had butchered an animal. So at this point I thought I wasn't going to manage to save him - but I had to try. So when I managed to corner him in the garage I snatched him up and flew through the house to the bathroom, heedlessly slamming through doors as though they didn't exist.
I keep medical supplies for my poultry in a basket in the bathroom. If you don't already, I highly recommend keeping a med kit in your most easily accessible bathroom or other area with a water source and keep it well stocked and orderly. You never want to waste time rooting through the house trying to find what you need. My poultry med basket includes safety scissors, vet wrap, gauze, dermagel, plain neosporin, Vetericyn, tweezers (both blunt and pointy), bird boots, syringes, scalpels, iodine, corn starch, and alcohol for disinfecting the tools. Various non emergency poultry medications and vitamins are kept out of the emergency basket so as not to clutter it up. In this case I ignored everything except the corn starch. Clipping away feathers, washing the wound, making sure it's clean - all of that could wait until the bleeding stopped. Yes, he could die of an infection from an unclean wound, but he can't die of an infection if he's already dead from blood loss, and the flow was not letting up. I panic grabbed a huge handfull of corn starch, jumped in the tub, and wrapped my hands around Tex's neck and head.
I say "panic grabbed" because honestly, pressure alone might have been a better choice. Corn starch can be a breeding ground for bacteria, but I usually use it for minor toe nail bleeds and whatnot where I'm not overly concerned about that sort of thing. At the time my brain was in its fight or flight mode and playing "stop the bleeding!" on repeat, so cornstarch panic grabbing happened, and luckily nothing bad came of it.
I hadn't stopped to take off my coat or anything, and thank goodness my boots slip on and off else they would have stayed put, too. So there I was, decked out for a winter day, applying pressure to a goose in a bathtub. For hours. It took fully half an hour to me to summon the courage to remove my hands from his neck, at which point the blood immediately came gushing and I applied pressure again. It went on like that, the blood always starting up again as soon as I'd let off pressure. At one point it seemed to have stopped, but Tex flicked his head and out it came again, so the process started over. Tex was calm - too calm. He kept nodding off, which isn't at all like him when his human dares to mess with him. I needed both hands and just sat, hunched, my back cramping up, my feet falling asleep, no one to call to help, and too befuddled, anxious, scared, hungry, and exhausted to call anyone even if I did know anyone nearby. My whole world in that time was holding pressure on my goose; the past and future may as well have never existed.
At some point I gave up checking on the bleeding and resigned myself to holding Tex forever. He must have quit bleeding eventually. I know I felt relief when it happened, and I know I watched the tiniest moves he made to make sure nothing started spurting again, but those aren't so much memories as something I know happened because people have repeated my story back to me. All I remember now is waking up when my husband walked into the bathroom. He'd been out of state visiting family for the holidays and had been driving home during the time all this had been happening. When he finally reached home sometime past midnight he was greeted by pools, puddles, and streaks of blood leading from outside the garage and on through the house. When he opened the bathroom door the sight that lay before him was a normally porcelain white tub painted red, and his wife sleeping on the floor, cuddling a goose and covered in blood.
The next day I put Tex in my smallest dog crate with peas and a bowl of water too shallow to dip his head in to get his wounds wet. He was subdued and not particularly interested in food (hence the peas in an attempt to entice him). I left him alone for most of the day and kept the crate mostly covered to keep it dark so he'd stay calm and limit movement. That evening I finally got around to checking him over, carefully cutting away feathers and cleaning his wounds up. I found another, smaller puncture wound on top of his head. It was like the dog had gotten Tex's whole face in his mouth and chomped. Everything got sprayed with Vetericyn. Then came the tedious process of scrubbing Tex free of all the dried blood and caked on corn starch, which took almost as long as cleaning the house of all the blood (weeks later and I'd still find things like a blood splat near a light switch I'd missed, or a bloody footprint in the corner of the garage. The bathroom smelled like iron for ages in spite of all the scrubbing I did). I gave him vitamins and kept him in the crate for a few days until he stopped seeming quite so tired. The area around his wounds swelled up a bit, but they never felt hot to the touch or anything so I felt safe to let him out with the flock again. Had it been a warm time of year I probably would have kept him indoors longer to keep away from flies, but that wasn't a concern in winter. I did change their swimming tubs a lot more frequently so he wouldn't be dunking his face in poop soup. There are those who would have kept him in a more sterile environment for longer, I know, but I've always had better luck with these things if I can get the animal back to its normal routine as soon as possible. Tex's flock also has a large pasture at their disposal - if they were kept in more confined conditions, or if the wound had been on his foot, I'd have reconsidered turning him out that soon. Being back with his flock perked him right up. It was a little obnoxious, to be honest. It was clear I'd been much more traumatized by the whole ordeal than he'd been!
If at any point Tex had demonstrated extreme pain I would have ended it for him, and I am so glad it didn't come to that. It's hard to assess pain in birds, I know, but there are signs to look for. I see a lot of posts on here asking for help for recently mauled birds and I always wish them the best. For wound care I highly recommend Vetericyn and Dermagel, and for bleeding, pressure, pressure, pressure! I got lucky with Tex, but not everyone gets lucky, and a bird that survives a major ordeal may succumb later to something seemingly minor. It's weird that way. Most importantly, though, vets are not readily available all the time, so if people can, I'd urge them to describe health issues they've had with their birds and what they did to try to help. Even if you bungle up something terribly in your treatment, it can still be a learning experience for other folks. Advising people at every turn to consult a vet is only helpful if people are also given the information required to help themselves. I'm not sure my experience with Tex is actually helpful, but it doesn't hurt to share.
Oh! And keep those med kits handy!
This is Tex:
As you can see, he is almost unfathomably handsome. I'm sure my ducks would forsake my drakes if they thought they had a chance with Tex.
It should be noted my staunch conviction that Tex is perfect in all ways in no way indicates bias in my opinion of his excellence.
Tex is also my flock protector, which is what led to my least favorite day in 2022. I wanted to remember what happened, but immediately afterwords I was too rattled to write anything down. So I drew it.
I am not a stranger to exaggeration for effect, but I can not exaggerate how much blood was everywhere. All it took was one well placed bite from the dog, and my buff goose was a red goose. Now, I am the type who can agonize for ages over toothpaste brands, and sometimes decisions can leave me paralyzed. But luckily I'm very quick in emergencies. There's actually something weirdly calming about emergencies in that everything boils down to two decisions; do or die. In this case all I knew was I needed to stop the flow of blood or my bird would die.
Tex is sweet and generally isn't overly opposed to being picked up, but he'd just attacked a dog and was amped up from that, plus I'm sure my panic didn't help matters because he ran from me. His movement increased the rate of blood flow, so I threw open the garage door and did my best to herd him in there for an easy grab as quickly as possible. It was awful, watching the blood fall and knowing chasing him wasn't helping matters, but at the same time having to chase him. I thought I'd kill him before I ever managed to get hands on him. Again, I can't overstate how much and how quickly the blood was coming. He seemed to have been punctured in the exact place I would have used a knife for butchering, and the only other time I'd seen blood flow so freely was when I had butchered an animal. So at this point I thought I wasn't going to manage to save him - but I had to try. So when I managed to corner him in the garage I snatched him up and flew through the house to the bathroom, heedlessly slamming through doors as though they didn't exist.
I keep medical supplies for my poultry in a basket in the bathroom. If you don't already, I highly recommend keeping a med kit in your most easily accessible bathroom or other area with a water source and keep it well stocked and orderly. You never want to waste time rooting through the house trying to find what you need. My poultry med basket includes safety scissors, vet wrap, gauze, dermagel, plain neosporin, Vetericyn, tweezers (both blunt and pointy), bird boots, syringes, scalpels, iodine, corn starch, and alcohol for disinfecting the tools. Various non emergency poultry medications and vitamins are kept out of the emergency basket so as not to clutter it up. In this case I ignored everything except the corn starch. Clipping away feathers, washing the wound, making sure it's clean - all of that could wait until the bleeding stopped. Yes, he could die of an infection from an unclean wound, but he can't die of an infection if he's already dead from blood loss, and the flow was not letting up. I panic grabbed a huge handfull of corn starch, jumped in the tub, and wrapped my hands around Tex's neck and head.
I say "panic grabbed" because honestly, pressure alone might have been a better choice. Corn starch can be a breeding ground for bacteria, but I usually use it for minor toe nail bleeds and whatnot where I'm not overly concerned about that sort of thing. At the time my brain was in its fight or flight mode and playing "stop the bleeding!" on repeat, so cornstarch panic grabbing happened, and luckily nothing bad came of it.
I hadn't stopped to take off my coat or anything, and thank goodness my boots slip on and off else they would have stayed put, too. So there I was, decked out for a winter day, applying pressure to a goose in a bathtub. For hours. It took fully half an hour to me to summon the courage to remove my hands from his neck, at which point the blood immediately came gushing and I applied pressure again. It went on like that, the blood always starting up again as soon as I'd let off pressure. At one point it seemed to have stopped, but Tex flicked his head and out it came again, so the process started over. Tex was calm - too calm. He kept nodding off, which isn't at all like him when his human dares to mess with him. I needed both hands and just sat, hunched, my back cramping up, my feet falling asleep, no one to call to help, and too befuddled, anxious, scared, hungry, and exhausted to call anyone even if I did know anyone nearby. My whole world in that time was holding pressure on my goose; the past and future may as well have never existed.
At some point I gave up checking on the bleeding and resigned myself to holding Tex forever. He must have quit bleeding eventually. I know I felt relief when it happened, and I know I watched the tiniest moves he made to make sure nothing started spurting again, but those aren't so much memories as something I know happened because people have repeated my story back to me. All I remember now is waking up when my husband walked into the bathroom. He'd been out of state visiting family for the holidays and had been driving home during the time all this had been happening. When he finally reached home sometime past midnight he was greeted by pools, puddles, and streaks of blood leading from outside the garage and on through the house. When he opened the bathroom door the sight that lay before him was a normally porcelain white tub painted red, and his wife sleeping on the floor, cuddling a goose and covered in blood.
The next day I put Tex in my smallest dog crate with peas and a bowl of water too shallow to dip his head in to get his wounds wet. He was subdued and not particularly interested in food (hence the peas in an attempt to entice him). I left him alone for most of the day and kept the crate mostly covered to keep it dark so he'd stay calm and limit movement. That evening I finally got around to checking him over, carefully cutting away feathers and cleaning his wounds up. I found another, smaller puncture wound on top of his head. It was like the dog had gotten Tex's whole face in his mouth and chomped. Everything got sprayed with Vetericyn. Then came the tedious process of scrubbing Tex free of all the dried blood and caked on corn starch, which took almost as long as cleaning the house of all the blood (weeks later and I'd still find things like a blood splat near a light switch I'd missed, or a bloody footprint in the corner of the garage. The bathroom smelled like iron for ages in spite of all the scrubbing I did). I gave him vitamins and kept him in the crate for a few days until he stopped seeming quite so tired. The area around his wounds swelled up a bit, but they never felt hot to the touch or anything so I felt safe to let him out with the flock again. Had it been a warm time of year I probably would have kept him indoors longer to keep away from flies, but that wasn't a concern in winter. I did change their swimming tubs a lot more frequently so he wouldn't be dunking his face in poop soup. There are those who would have kept him in a more sterile environment for longer, I know, but I've always had better luck with these things if I can get the animal back to its normal routine as soon as possible. Tex's flock also has a large pasture at their disposal - if they were kept in more confined conditions, or if the wound had been on his foot, I'd have reconsidered turning him out that soon. Being back with his flock perked him right up. It was a little obnoxious, to be honest. It was clear I'd been much more traumatized by the whole ordeal than he'd been!
If at any point Tex had demonstrated extreme pain I would have ended it for him, and I am so glad it didn't come to that. It's hard to assess pain in birds, I know, but there are signs to look for. I see a lot of posts on here asking for help for recently mauled birds and I always wish them the best. For wound care I highly recommend Vetericyn and Dermagel, and for bleeding, pressure, pressure, pressure! I got lucky with Tex, but not everyone gets lucky, and a bird that survives a major ordeal may succumb later to something seemingly minor. It's weird that way. Most importantly, though, vets are not readily available all the time, so if people can, I'd urge them to describe health issues they've had with their birds and what they did to try to help. Even if you bungle up something terribly in your treatment, it can still be a learning experience for other folks. Advising people at every turn to consult a vet is only helpful if people are also given the information required to help themselves. I'm not sure my experience with Tex is actually helpful, but it doesn't hurt to share.
Oh! And keep those med kits handy!
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