Little bantam injured in Fox attack, advice?

[elpresso2024]

Hi all!

My little flock of four chickens - three rescues named Skinny, Floppy & Ibby and one booted bantam survivor from a batch hatched during lockdown named Dolly - got attacked by a Fox last night. The three rescues somehow (despite their best efforts) came out unscathed but Dolly got caught by the Fox who had her for a couple of seconds before I managed to get outside and chase the fox off!

Brought her immediately inside and found one puncture wound under her right wing towards the saddle. We applied heavily salted water to clean the wound and used cotton pads to stem any bleeding which stopped shortly after the attack.

She went into shock shortly after and we kept her warm with a combination of a hot water bottle and our underfloor heating cranked up to 24 deg C (75 F). Offered her a mix of scrambled egg and honey two hours later which she eat some of. She refused water. She did though peck at our fingers and pull the cotton pads off of her which is very much in keeping with how she behaves normally, haha!

She was panting a lot including very bubbly and crackly breathing but that ceased two hours after the event. Left her overnight with the underfloor heating on.

This morning, she's still alive and standing and making chicken noises. EDIT: she did have some water this morning. Applied vetericyn spray to the wound three times so far today but the first time, when adjusting her body position to make it easier, she either coughed up or brought up about 6-7 droplets of blood. After this, her bubbly/crackly/wet breathing returned for 30 minutes before subsiding. Have not seen any more blood since then and its been about 3 hours odd.

Have now taken her upstairs to a quiet room in a cage and placed her near a radiator and covered most of the cage. Replaced her egg with her favourite snack of chopped white grapes. Have also mixed water with honey to give her something sweet to drink. She did accept 2 drops of calpol/neurofen for kids which should ease the discomfort for her. I'll apply another drop this evening.

Just a few questions now:

1. When I move her slightly to apply the vetericyn, the laboured, wet bubbly breathing returns. She hasn't coughed up any more blood though. I'm guessing that the Fox, when it bit her, bruised her lung as laboured breathing and coughing up blood are symptoms of that for humans. Would this be the same for chickens.

2. At what point should I become worried that she's not drinking/eating? Its been roughly 20 hours since the attack occurred. I've read that if they don't drink then "little and often" forced feeding is required but what constitutes "often"? Every 10 minutes? Every half hour?

Thanks so much to everybody in advance!

 

[Eggcessive]

So glad that you saved your bantam from the fox. Time will tell if she has internal injuries that she can recover from. Squeezing could have caused problems. The lungs are located in the upper back. Do you have a picture of her wound? Saline is good to apply to the wound. Only 2 tsp of salt to a quart of water is needed, and is isotonic to the body’s fluids. Don’t over salt the water. Apply some plain antibiotic cream or ointment on the wound twice a day. I would take a couple of spoonful of chicken feed and add water to make a mush, which most chickens like. I will add water to any of the food to get more fluids into them. Canned cat food, tuna, egg, and plain Greek yogurt in small amounts may also tempt her to eat. Tube feeding is a good method to get more fluid and food into her if needed. It is easy to learn and feeding tubes and syringes are easy to find on Amazon. Here is a link for one:
https://www.amazon.com/Agri-Pro-Ent...MIxsy6rJqShgMVd1z_AR3fpA6LEAQYAiABEgKBifD_BwE
Let us know how how gets along.

 

[elpresso2024]

Update 36 hours in.

Dolly pretty chill and making various little chirping noises throughout the day yesterday. There was some bubbly wheezing breathing at one point but went as soon as it appeared. Put her next to a radiator for the rest of the day as I saw she had puffed her feathers up then after an hour had to pull her away as she transitioned to just standing there panting rapidly haha.

She did take the odd sip of honey water from time to time and also pecked at the honey mixed corn mash. Poops were solid with no blood in them. Wound appeared to have scabbed over with some green buising. Sprayed the wound with vetericyn 6 times across the day which acts as saline to clear everything out.

By the evening, her tail had come up and she was hobbling around her cage, wanting to get out which I let her do to stretch her legs as I cleaned her cage out, replaced her water, etc before putting her back in. Last check before bed I found she had laid an egg!

She was calm overnight and was perky and moving this morning - albeit with a very pronounced limp on her right hand (bitten) side. No more bubbly, wet or wheezing breathing and happily eat and drank.

Feel we've dodged not just a bullet but an entire howitzer artillery shell and will keep her caged and covered ensure she recovers over the next few days all calm and chilled.