URGENT! Chicken attacked by dog, how should we care for her?

[Pecky]

My chicken was attacked by my dog yesterday, a great deal of her back feathers near her neck were torn out, and she was bleeding a bit from the area. I tried to nudge her out of where she was hiding, but she kept put, I even tried to get her to come out by guiding her out using her favorite food as a lour, I ended up picking her up and putting her in the coop. She ran over to the water, and seemed okay. But at night, when all the other chickens had already retired to the coop, she was laying down on the floor under the coop. I picked her up and placed her in the coop, but she seemed very unwell..

Today, she was acting like herself, but quite anti-social with the other birds.
My chickens are free-ranged so I had them all out for most of the day, and the hurt chicken grazed as normal as ever, except she stayed away from the other birds.
Well, all the chickens were in the coop at night, and one of them pecked her on her back where the feathers were torn out! That made me gosh darn mad, so I searched it up on the internet and found out that she shouldn't stay with the other chickens. So she is currently living in the shed (its completely safe from predictors), she has food and water and a bed in the shed, but what else can i do to help her?

Is there anything special I can do to help my chicken?
What are the chances that she will live?
If she lives, how long do you think it will take for her to grow her feathers back? Or will she not get them back until she molts?

 

[cjeanean]

I've read on here to give her electrolytes to help with shock, and a peaceful environment. Since damage was done you may want to flush with some saline or betadine, and apply some neosporin (WITHOUT pain relief, any medicines that have the painkillers ending in 'caine' or some variation will kill your chickens!) and monitor the healing. You may want to put a mirror or something in there so she has a buddy, but I don't think it's 100% necessary. Keep her isolated until the healing's done so the other chickens won't peck her, and u may want to get some Blu Kote if you want to put her back with the others before she's healed completely, since this will keep the others from pecking her. Good luck!!!

BTW:

 

[Pecky]

Thanks! I'll tell my parents to pick some up, I am only fifteen, but I basically own the chickens other then the financial parts of them.

So you think there is a good chance she will live?

 

[cjeanean]

Just wanted to add, in the event that you aren't familiar with it: blue kote is an antibacterial coating stuff that you can get from tractor supply for about 5 bucks.

 

[cjeanean]

I think so. From my experience on here I think the two most important things are helping her recover from the shock and making sure infection doesn't set in. If she's not torn up too badly she should be fine, but I would watch for puncture wounds and pay special attention to them, since punctures harbor a lot of bacteria that can get trapped and cause infections under the skin or in the actual body tissue/meat. (couldn't think of any other way to say that....meat, you know what I mean...muscle, whatever) You can make a saline solution yourself to flush her wounds out with, I'll do a search and post back in a minute when I find the directions for chicken saline flushes...

 

[mainchick]

My daughters show bird was attacked right before a show in May. She was ripped open from the neck around down to the breast. We took her to the vet and they glued and stitched her together and she is alive and well!! they can really survive!! She was separated so she could recover. My other fellow 4Her had a chicken attacked by a bobcat. The bobcat punctured her skull. The chicken lived a whole other year before she died naturally. It is amazing how strong a little bird can be!

 

[cjeanean]

Here's the directions for the saline flush, and some ideas for how to deal with puncture wounds. Please remember that any creams that you use must be free from all painkillers that end with the suffix -caine, like lido-CAINE, because it will kill them:

make up some sterile saline solution and FLUSH (squirt into) those puncture wounds and then fill them with antibiotic creme and repeat again in six hours or so...
you can make the saline yourself by boiling 1/4 tsp salt in a quart of water for five minutes (allow to cool of course) > make fresh daily.

 

[Pecky]

Thanks alot! I really hope my chicken is okay, I am so attached to all of them!

 

[cjeanean]

keep us updated on her condition, and once again welcome to BYC. As a new member, you should know that there are THOUSANDS of threads on here about almost everything you can think of, so feel free to use the search feature (up at the top on the blue bar) or just browse through everything. Don't hesitate to ask if you can't find an answer or need help!!! No question is a stupid question!!!! Once you get a chance you should post some pics of your chickens and give us a little history of yourself and how you got into raising them. It's always fun when there's a new member!!! Good luck!!!

 

[Pecky]

I plan to take picture tomorrow of all the chickens!

But, how do you make those page things? I would love to put my little story up their, and all the pictures. ^-^