UPDATE - Chickens injured in raccoon attack. 1 is gonna be famous

[lbartsch]

Some of you may have read about our coop getting raided by a raccoon two weeks ago when my husband (poor thing) forgot to close the coop up one night. We lost one chicken and two were very badly injured. Our SL Wyandotte had a deep gash diagonally across her whole side from underneath her wing at the shoulder to her leg. Our EE had a big wound on her back and one leg was completely "depantsed" meaning that all the skin was torn and rolled down her leg.

The SL Wyandotte got her stitches out today but needed a few staples to close up a couple of stubborn spots. He should have those out in 10 more days and be totally healed. Fingers crossed.

The EE's back has totally healed and feathers are starting to come back a little. Her leg is another story. She's had two surgeries on it and is scheduled for another this week. Poor little dear is going through so much. The problem is that there wasn't enough skin left on her leg to close everything up. So, we keep slowly getting her to make more skin through wet bandaging changes and then knitting that together. So far it is working mostly well but is really really slow. She might still lose her leg if it doesn't ultimately get totally healed but we're trying everything possible. Our veterinarian has been AMAZING! His name is Dr. Otten at All Creatures in San Leandro if you're in the Bay Area. He is doing an article for a medical journal on avian anesthesia so he's been using his experience with our chicken as research for his article. So our little Lightball will be featured in an avian medical journal. Hopefully, she'll get to keep her leg too.

I can tell you it has been tough caring for them these past two weeks. Cleaning wounds, bandages, anti-inflamatories, ant-biotics, watching for maggots, cleaning up really wet poop from the medication, all of it. But we take our commitment to our animals seriously and it has also felt good to live up to that promise.

Now just waiting for it to be done.

Thanks for listening.

 

[Imp]

Best wishes to you & Lightball, that's an amazing story.

And don't let Lightball's fame go to her head,

Imp

 

[onafixedincome]

If you look back in the threads, you'll find my story of the half-skinned pet turkey. Her skin was also deflected/degloved and impossible to close. Her injuries were dressed with liberal amounts of furazolidone ointment and abdominal dressings (sterile absorbent cotton similar to gamgee), then wrapped with vetrap and left for up to a week at a time to allow for granulation to occur.

Worked awesome; it took about a month but she did manage to regrow sound skin across the wide area required.

From dealing with three or so of these types of injuries, I'd suspect that over-working such injuries can be more of a delay than a positive thing. Prevent infection, keep it moist (I'd have killed for a good gel dressing), and leave it alone.

As a retired vet tech, I did what I could with what I had on hand and was absolutely stunned by their ability to recover. Incredibly tough, chickens/turkeys....

Luck!