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Saturday, February 1, 2014

Chicken attacked

Mona, our Partridge Rock, was attacked by something earlier in the week. We don't know what it was but suspect a hawk. This summer DD was in the backyard with the chickens when a hawk flew down and grabbed one of our younger chicks and tried to carry it off. Luckily the chick was sitting on some branches and it held on long enough for DD to run screaming at the hawk. I came out as it flew into the tree inside the chicken area. We chased it with a little air soft gun around all our trees and our neighbors. Finally it flew off.
This time DD was going out to give her left over apple to the chickens and was met with a yard full of feathers. She found Mona hiding between a pot and the fence. It possibly could've been one or both of our dogs but Basil was laying inside in the crate and Jasmine was relaxing on the deck. DD said she saw a big bird fly over our house as she carried Mona inside.
I'm not discounting that it was our dog(s), but it makes more sense to me that it's a hawk. I think the dogs see the commotion and run down there and scare the hawk off. I've watched (unknown by the dogs) the chickens steal food from the dogs. They'll be eating a treat I throw to them and the chickens just walk up and start eating it right out from under the dogs. Jasmine just sits back and watches and waits her turn for any left overs. Basil is a little more bold and sneaks in and out grabbing bites. If there were a time to attack the chickens that seems like the time. Also, if it was Jasmine, I would expect the chicken to be dead. She shakes all of her toys and playmates vigorously and would've certainly broken the chickens neck. The areas of wounds all leads me to hawks. A hawk will land on the chicken, hold it down, and start eating it from the neck/breast down. Mona and Amber (our chicken that was attacked this summer while we were all gone) both had puncture wounds under the wings, missing tail feathers, and the neck/breast area ripped off.
We thought for sure Amber would die she lost so much skin and muscle but with a lot of TLC she pulled through. It took her 6 months to start laying again but she is a good layer now.
While Mona's injuries seemed less severe at first she is actually more touch and go. The skin on top of her crop was ripped off and exposed the crop. This wasn't too bad until she scratched a hole in it so now all her food will leak out. Of course all this always happens when I'm out of town! DH tried superglueing the hole together but it didn't hold. Then he tried stitching it, those disappeared. When I got home we used thicker glue and stitches again. Again they disappeared. Then when we were going to try one more time, she struggled and put her claw into the hole in her crop and came out in a new hole. When I went to get her claw out she curled her foot and ripped the two holes into one. We flushed the crop out and stitched it back up, put super glue all over it, glued the little flap of skin that was left down, then wrapped her real good in self-stick bandage. So far that has held. I think she was preening the stitches out of the hole before.
We are feeding her every hour or two small bits of a mixture of egg yolk, yogurt, and honey. This morning you could tell she was dehydrated. She hadn't had gotten anything into her system in 2 days and her wattles were starting to shrink. One side was almost non existent this morning. But after 2 feedings they are back to normal so it is clear she is at least getting some nutrients into her system.
I leave again tomorrow so Wolf will be in charge of feeding her. Luckily he is home this week on workman's comp (not good that he hurt his back but good that he will be here for her).
Fingers crossed she heals enough to start eating again. She doesn't even seem to realize she is hurt and is active and alert. It would be really hard to put her down when she doesn't appear sick.

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