caca4chickens
Chirping
- May 28, 2013
- 8
- 8
- 64
Hello all!
If you're reading this odds are your chicken's leg has been ripped off by a raccoon. This happened to my chick last night (around the "knee" area), so below I will write 1) WHAT TO DO when this happens (what I did) 2) PRODUCTS that are lifesavers in these type of situations 3) My experience 4) Updates
1) WHAT TO DO
- Make sure it's okay to separate chicken from flock (once raccoon gone / chaos gone)
-Separate chicken from others once situation has deescalated
-Bring chicken to a sterile-enough place where you're able to address the wound (I brought mine to my kitchen floor, placed her on top of paper towel and had a lamp on the ground)
- If chicken is bleeding, stop the bleeding before anything else. If there are more people around, have one person deal with the bleeding while the others move onto the next step.
- Collect the tools that you'll need to address the wound (i.e. gauze/napkins, alcohol/benzyl peroxide, gauze tape, tweezers for removing feathers
- Once bleeding has subsided, and you have everything you need:
i. remove feathers in wound
ii. clean out with alcohol/benzyl peroxide/witch hazel
iii. place ointments on wound (I happened to have antibiotic ointment, but as the situation is hectic anything you have will do)
iiii. wrap wound with thin layer of gauze -- not too tight, allow for circulation and air
V. use gauze tape to hold gauze in place
- Keep chicken inside the home for the night (and coming days) -- NO HAY/STRAW as it could get inside the wound. I placed my chicken in a plastic drawer from my closet and put a towel down to it's a soft bottom.
- Give the chicken water. At this point, your chicken should be bandaged up and "resting" in an isolated area. You should try and give her water -- I happen to have tiny syringes at home and am able to fill those up with water and put it down her throat/in beak.
- IF THIS HAPPENS DURING DAY / NIGHT:
i. Day -- a. Decide if you want to go to a vet to get the wound sewed up (see below to find out more about possible option at vet). If not, keep a close eye on the chicken and feed her pureed scrambled egg with yogurt. Odds are she wont take normal feed -- if she does, great!
b. Go to vet, see what they say. Otherwise, make sure to wash out wound 3x a day or as needed ; if you think you need to keep wound covered with gauze, change that too.
ii. Night -- a. Decide if in the morning you want to go to the vet (see below for more Vet info). If not, you've done your job for the night .... just cross your fingers that she's okay in the morning
b. Same as step 'b' above.
- When flushing out would, use products 1,2,3 below.
2) PRODUCTS that are lifesavers in these type of situations (to have around house)
1. Saline solution
2. Some iodine product -- I got uncolored (!!) from CVS (around $8)
3. Vetericyn spray (pretty pricey, okay to skip if too expensive)
4. Nutri-Drench, filled with necessary vitamins and minerals that help chickens, espc. when lethargic like mine is
5. Tiny syringes (to feed water and pureed yogurt and egg)
3) My experience
THE ATTACK:
All my chickens were in the coop except for two older hens. I am in the process of introducing 2.5 month old chicks to my larger flock, so I had my chicks in a dog crate on the floor of the coop (wooden slat floor with chicken wire reinforced). I left the back door of coop open (as it is normally during the day) to let the last two chickens go inside, and I went back to the house. Maybe 5 min later I open the door and am immediately greeted by squawking -- immediately I yell at the top of my lungs "I'm coming I'm coming).
(TIP: when you think your chickens are under attack, make as much noise as you can until you get to them. Hoping you'll scare whatever is there away.)
I get to the coop, open the front door and it's chaos -- especially in the dog crate with my young chicks. I pick my eyes up to eye level and see a raccoon in the coop(!!!) behind the dog crate, right in front of the back door. Immediately I start screaming for my dad (I'm 23 and live at home currently) yelling "DAD HELLP DAD DAD HEEELP HELP ME PLEASE". As I'm yelling I am literally playing tug-of-war with this raccoon!!! It's got hold of something through the crate slats (don't now what but my fear is a chick's head) and I'm trying to pull the crate out of the coop. Finally the raccoon let's go, goes out the back door and I follow it. I am filled with such rage, yelling at it "I'm going to f***ing kill you" as it sort of stands 6ft away from me. I grab the metal shovel near by, wishing it was my pitch fork that in the back of their enclosed area, hoping to smash it's head in. I sort of throw the shovel knowing it wont do any good, and when I do the raccoon runs toward the back of the area and climbs half way up the smaller sized tree. Now that the raccoon is in the tree, I am able to grab my pitch fork and aim it. Unfortunately I determined that throwing my heavy pitch fork wasn't smart as it was getting dark and I was near the neighbor's yard.
The raccoon and I locked eyes, it looked at me, chewed twice (almost like an 'F You'), and jumped into the neighbor's yard. All in that exact sequence.
I run back to the coop, see all six heads on my smaller chicks and see that all my older hens perching are okay. I think I got there just as the raccoon entered because it easily could have killed my entire flock, especially since it was blocking the only entrance in and out at that point.
Upon further inspection I see that one of my young chick's leg is practically torn off - though hanging by a ligament. With my father keeping watch, I run inside to grab the scissors to cut the ligament (detaching the foot/leg entirely) and bring the chicken inside. Once inside, I do what is listed under the section "WHAT DO DO" above.
This happened at night so I decided that in the morning I would go to the vet so he/she could sew the wound closed, making it easier to heal.
*****
THE VET:
I'm at the vet by 8:00am (when they open) and at first he tells me that amputation of what is left would cost around $650 ... I said no way. Then he said to euthanize, but I told him that the chicken has survived this far, I want to give her a fighting chance. He's able to bring skin together to mostly close the wound, leaving a little open for drainage. He then gives me a saline bag, one-time use antibiotic liquid to include in the first flush and some tools to easily flush the wound. He did the first flush with the antibiotic liquid to show me how it's done, and then gave me some "tools" to make the flushing easier (large syringe with long, thin plastic nozzle to get deep in wound, large saline bag).
The sewing up by the vet, large saline bag and tools cost me $170. I live 12 miles outside of Manhattan so that price reflects a densely populated area where exotic/bird vets, or even backyard chickens, aren't common.
After the vet we went home, fed the chicken water and pureed egg/yogurt and followed the 'PRODUCTS''s directions as stated on their labels.
3) Updated
Sadly, as I was half way through writing this post, my mother called me down to say that the chicken died. Not even 10 minutes ago, probably. Pretty sad because I really did think that with all the care she could have pulled through.
I've seen posts where some live and others don't. It depends if you want to put the time, effort and possibly money into trying to save the chicken, but also is keeping the chicken alive worth it for their sake; their quality of life? We decided it was.
Her name was Hopscotch. We gave her that name knowing that if she did survive with one leg, she'd be hopping around for the rest of her life.
Overall, worth every penny and second trying to save her.
The situation could have been much worse -- we could have had many more fatalities and carnage. Thankfully we didn't.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
I hope this post helps whoever is out there that could be going through the same thing I did. I wrote this because as I was deciding what to do immediately after the attack, I googled for answers. Hopefully this is yours.
Best of luck!!
If you're reading this odds are your chicken's leg has been ripped off by a raccoon. This happened to my chick last night (around the "knee" area), so below I will write 1) WHAT TO DO when this happens (what I did) 2) PRODUCTS that are lifesavers in these type of situations 3) My experience 4) Updates
1) WHAT TO DO
- Make sure it's okay to separate chicken from flock (once raccoon gone / chaos gone)
-Separate chicken from others once situation has deescalated
-Bring chicken to a sterile-enough place where you're able to address the wound (I brought mine to my kitchen floor, placed her on top of paper towel and had a lamp on the ground)
- If chicken is bleeding, stop the bleeding before anything else. If there are more people around, have one person deal with the bleeding while the others move onto the next step.
- Collect the tools that you'll need to address the wound (i.e. gauze/napkins, alcohol/benzyl peroxide, gauze tape, tweezers for removing feathers
- Once bleeding has subsided, and you have everything you need:
i. remove feathers in wound
ii. clean out with alcohol/benzyl peroxide/witch hazel
iii. place ointments on wound (I happened to have antibiotic ointment, but as the situation is hectic anything you have will do)
iiii. wrap wound with thin layer of gauze -- not too tight, allow for circulation and air
V. use gauze tape to hold gauze in place
- Keep chicken inside the home for the night (and coming days) -- NO HAY/STRAW as it could get inside the wound. I placed my chicken in a plastic drawer from my closet and put a towel down to it's a soft bottom.
- Give the chicken water. At this point, your chicken should be bandaged up and "resting" in an isolated area. You should try and give her water -- I happen to have tiny syringes at home and am able to fill those up with water and put it down her throat/in beak.
- IF THIS HAPPENS DURING DAY / NIGHT:
i. Day -- a. Decide if you want to go to a vet to get the wound sewed up (see below to find out more about possible option at vet). If not, keep a close eye on the chicken and feed her pureed scrambled egg with yogurt. Odds are she wont take normal feed -- if she does, great!
b. Go to vet, see what they say. Otherwise, make sure to wash out wound 3x a day or as needed ; if you think you need to keep wound covered with gauze, change that too.
ii. Night -- a. Decide if in the morning you want to go to the vet (see below for more Vet info). If not, you've done your job for the night .... just cross your fingers that she's okay in the morning
b. Same as step 'b' above.
- When flushing out would, use products 1,2,3 below.
2) PRODUCTS that are lifesavers in these type of situations (to have around house)
1. Saline solution
2. Some iodine product -- I got uncolored (!!) from CVS (around $8)
3. Vetericyn spray (pretty pricey, okay to skip if too expensive)
4. Nutri-Drench, filled with necessary vitamins and minerals that help chickens, espc. when lethargic like mine is
5. Tiny syringes (to feed water and pureed yogurt and egg)
3) My experience
THE ATTACK:
All my chickens were in the coop except for two older hens. I am in the process of introducing 2.5 month old chicks to my larger flock, so I had my chicks in a dog crate on the floor of the coop (wooden slat floor with chicken wire reinforced). I left the back door of coop open (as it is normally during the day) to let the last two chickens go inside, and I went back to the house. Maybe 5 min later I open the door and am immediately greeted by squawking -- immediately I yell at the top of my lungs "I'm coming I'm coming).
(TIP: when you think your chickens are under attack, make as much noise as you can until you get to them. Hoping you'll scare whatever is there away.)
I get to the coop, open the front door and it's chaos -- especially in the dog crate with my young chicks. I pick my eyes up to eye level and see a raccoon in the coop(!!!) behind the dog crate, right in front of the back door. Immediately I start screaming for my dad (I'm 23 and live at home currently) yelling "DAD HELLP DAD DAD HEEELP HELP ME PLEASE". As I'm yelling I am literally playing tug-of-war with this raccoon!!! It's got hold of something through the crate slats (don't now what but my fear is a chick's head) and I'm trying to pull the crate out of the coop. Finally the raccoon let's go, goes out the back door and I follow it. I am filled with such rage, yelling at it "I'm going to f***ing kill you" as it sort of stands 6ft away from me. I grab the metal shovel near by, wishing it was my pitch fork that in the back of their enclosed area, hoping to smash it's head in. I sort of throw the shovel knowing it wont do any good, and when I do the raccoon runs toward the back of the area and climbs half way up the smaller sized tree. Now that the raccoon is in the tree, I am able to grab my pitch fork and aim it. Unfortunately I determined that throwing my heavy pitch fork wasn't smart as it was getting dark and I was near the neighbor's yard.
The raccoon and I locked eyes, it looked at me, chewed twice (almost like an 'F You'), and jumped into the neighbor's yard. All in that exact sequence.
I run back to the coop, see all six heads on my smaller chicks and see that all my older hens perching are okay. I think I got there just as the raccoon entered because it easily could have killed my entire flock, especially since it was blocking the only entrance in and out at that point.
Upon further inspection I see that one of my young chick's leg is practically torn off - though hanging by a ligament. With my father keeping watch, I run inside to grab the scissors to cut the ligament (detaching the foot/leg entirely) and bring the chicken inside. Once inside, I do what is listed under the section "WHAT DO DO" above.
This happened at night so I decided that in the morning I would go to the vet so he/she could sew the wound closed, making it easier to heal.
*****
THE VET:
I'm at the vet by 8:00am (when they open) and at first he tells me that amputation of what is left would cost around $650 ... I said no way. Then he said to euthanize, but I told him that the chicken has survived this far, I want to give her a fighting chance. He's able to bring skin together to mostly close the wound, leaving a little open for drainage. He then gives me a saline bag, one-time use antibiotic liquid to include in the first flush and some tools to easily flush the wound. He did the first flush with the antibiotic liquid to show me how it's done, and then gave me some "tools" to make the flushing easier (large syringe with long, thin plastic nozzle to get deep in wound, large saline bag).
The sewing up by the vet, large saline bag and tools cost me $170. I live 12 miles outside of Manhattan so that price reflects a densely populated area where exotic/bird vets, or even backyard chickens, aren't common.
After the vet we went home, fed the chicken water and pureed egg/yogurt and followed the 'PRODUCTS''s directions as stated on their labels.
3) Updated
Sadly, as I was half way through writing this post, my mother called me down to say that the chicken died. Not even 10 minutes ago, probably. Pretty sad because I really did think that with all the care she could have pulled through.
I've seen posts where some live and others don't. It depends if you want to put the time, effort and possibly money into trying to save the chicken, but also is keeping the chicken alive worth it for their sake; their quality of life? We decided it was.
Her name was Hopscotch. We gave her that name knowing that if she did survive with one leg, she'd be hopping around for the rest of her life.
Overall, worth every penny and second trying to save her.
The situation could have been much worse -- we could have had many more fatalities and carnage. Thankfully we didn't.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
I hope this post helps whoever is out there that could be going through the same thing I did. I wrote this because as I was deciding what to do immediately after the attack, I googled for answers. Hopefully this is yours.
Best of luck!!
You did everything you could. Thanks for sharing.
