Chicken surgery!

We had an interesting afternoon yesterday. It's one of the busiest days of the week for us, what with church and all, & we ended it with having to do a chicken surgery. Lord, what is this "day of rest" You speak of?

Walking by one of the pens in the late afternoon, this is what I found. You can see the feathers are stuck to the fence. What you can't see from this pic is all the feathers on the ground outside the fence, the evidence of an animal presence where the dirt is all stirred up, & part of the chain link is actually bent outward where the animal in question was trying to pull the chicken through the fence.

Horror of horrors! This is the poor little hen who was attacked. I found her in the wooden doghouse, hiding with a broken wing. Actually, what was left of her wing was a bloody dangling mess. You can see the rooster & one of the other hens in the background, watching. If only chickens could talk!

Assuming she would have to be turned into tomorrow's chicken dinner, I carried her up to the house with my heart in my throat. When I walk in the door & say "Honey, we have a problem!" my husband knows I'm gonna ask him to do something. I wanted him to take her out back & do the dirty deed of chopping off her head. I can't do it personally, no pun intended, I'm a big chicken. But, after a close inspection & some deliberation, we decided to amputate the wing below the break. We hate to lose a good laying hen. Here in this pic you can see what's left of her wing after the amputation.

Here we have placed her in the sink & applied DE (diatomaceous earth) to stop the bleeding & hopefully prevent infection. We only had pool-grade DE on hand at that moment, but since she isn't eating it, it should be fine.

Here she is bandaged up & re"coop"erating in the hospital (a rabbit hutch we keep in our house for these situations). She will be monitored closely for signs of infection, given daily DE treatments along with antiseptic spray & bandage changes, and doses of herbs to boost her immune system & prevent infection. We try to give every animal a fighting chance to survive & thrive, when possible. And, we try to do everything as naturally & organically as possible.

I think we will call her "Nemo". If she survives this she will still be able to hatch her own brood of chicks come spring & add to our flock of Dominique's. She will be retired from showing, but I don't think she will mind.

Back to the elusive animal predator.... my husband thinks it's a Tomcat we have seen around. Since the chicken appears to have been "caught or grabbed" by something that could reach through the fence, it seems like a possibility. In fact, now that I think about it, my neighbor lost a rooster last week when something "pulled" it through the bars of the cage. A coyote can't do that, but a dexterous cat can.

I set our live trap last night to try & catch the rascal, but ended up with only a rabbit so far. I'm 'upping the ante' & getting some tuna!

So, "Dinner" will be pardoned. He is our year old Boer buck who lives in the pen with the chickens where the incident happened. He loves to stand on top of the doghouse, pretending he is a mountain goat, & jumps off into the group of 5 chickens wherever they are gathered. Of course they screech & cackle as they scatter, and Dinner thinks it's so much fun, he does it again. And again. We call it "bowling for chickens".

I have always feared he would someday hurt one of the chickens. So yesterday my first assumption was that he had finally pinned one of the poor things against the fence and caused the injury. I moved him to a new pen, all by himself. But, it was time for a move anyway, he is bigger now & should be joining the other bucks soon. My baby is growing up!

Toodles!