One of our Ameraucanas was attacked by a hawk today. I discovered what was happening when I noticed the roosters running around each other in a little circle and yelling their beaks off. Because of the amount of snow we've had, and high snowbanks, I couldn't see until I got out there what the problem was. The hawk took off, leaving the chicken on the ground. She has a couple punctures on her back and the hawk was apparently trying to eat her alive starting around her head and neck.
I've put triple antibiotic ointment on the wounds, and have her in a crate next to our woodstove. What antibiotic have you all used either as a drench or in water? I'm figuring those punctures are likely to get infected, although I'm leaving them open.
Hawk injuries
What about iodine? I have never needed any as of yet. I am not sure what else to use. I am sure there is someone else with a lot more experience. I am really sorry for the hurt bird. It has been a long and cold winter. Best wishes to you and the chicken. Keep us updated.
Jeanmaire
sorry to hear your trouble with the hawk. I too was plagued with hawks, I used triple antibiotic ointment too on the 1 that survived. her chest was completely ripped open and she healed up fine. I finally had to buy 3 50 x 50 aviary nets to string up over some of the chickens favorite places to hang out to stop the killings.
You might try neosporin, on the other hand chickens are great healers on their own. You might even try vaseline, to keep infection out. If you can keep it from becoming infected, she'll heal just fine on her own. Haystack.
This may sound strange and I do not know if it will work on a chicken. But honey will kill infection and speed healing. Doctors have now excepted what many have know and used for centuries.
I have seen it work of extremely infected wounds.
If it were me, I'd try to clean it with peroxide and then put neosporin on it. You don't want a puncture wound to close too fast... so I'd use iodine for drying up and closing wounds.. neosporin or whatever kind of ointment to keep it moist...
Good luck! I hope she heals fast.
Well, she's still with us. She can stand and walk on her own, but she sometimes does this funny thing with her head, bending her neck up then way down. I think all the feathers stuck together with blood (which I didn't want to mess with and get things bleeding again) must feel a bit funny. She has one eye open now, but keeps the other closed. We've given her water with a pipet, and tonight got her to drink out of a tablespoon and then out of her water dish if we held it up to her beak. I'm not sure she can see it too well, having only one eye to work with. She's pooping OK, but hasn't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon. Her crop was really full when the hawk grabbed her, so she had all that food to process. I'll see if she feels like eating tomorrow.
She is still with us and appears to be on the mend. We have a house chicken though for now, until she is completely healed, and probably until the snow melts and I can let all the chickens roam outside their pen. I think if I put her back in with the rest of them before that, they'd pick on her and she wouldn't be able to get away.
She's eating and drinking on her own. She keeps her right eye mostly closed most of the time, and I think this was affecting her perception of where the food/water was. So we soaked some food in water, and used a measuring tablespoon to scoop some up and she drank the watery slurry and then realized there was food there, and started trying to grab the bits out of it, so we put more in a dose cup (like you get with your Pepto Bismol) and she started snarfing it down. So then I held the dish of dry food under her beak and once she got her beak in, there was no stopping her.