Don't look if you're squeamish

What you need to fix a broken chicken:

40 cc of tube fed Harrison's Recovery Formula
0.8 cc Trimethoprim, an antibiotic
125 mg tablet Clavamox, another antibiotic
1 gram of Benebac Gel, a probiotic (because of the anti-'s)
0.8cc Carprofen, strawberry flavored, for pain
Chlorhexadine for flushing the wound
Tube of Golden Yellow poultice to pack the wound after flushing

As time has gone by, it's gotten simpler.  We dropped the tube feeding (but she's so skinny! i'm constantly worried I should forcefeed her again).  Then the pain reliever.  Last night we lost the first antibiotic and the wound flushing.  All we've got now is the second antibiotic for a few more days, the probiotic, and the Golden Yellow.  I want to show you the wound progress now, in case you are as morbidly curious about these things as I am.  If not, tune out now.

Here it was 15 days ago, after the surgery to close everything up.  I didn't think it looked that bad.  Of course, the feathers are covering half of the back wound and all of the tail bite.

Here's 11 days ago, when things got putrid and before the vet cleaned everything up.  Eeeew.

Nine days ago, after the vet took out the yuck and put the first application of the magical curry medicine.  This was the day I got so sad about how pointless it all was.  If you know where to look you can see that the wound is bone deep.

This is today.   Okay, I know it may not look that good from the aerial view, but trust me, the improvement in nine days is nothing short of miraculous.  It is dry, infection-free, and the bone and muscle is completely covered.  The edges are healing to pink and the center fills in more and more every time I look at it.  You can see that the feathers are coming back. 

Yesterday I put Batty in the yard for an hour with the other chickens.  She kept up with them, did all of the chickeny stuff like scratching, bug-catching, dust bathing, tail shaking (with her 2 tail feathers).  At dusk, she went to the coop and flew up to the roost with everyone else.

I let her sit there for a bit, but eventually had to take her back in to her hospital jail (formerly Tiny Dog's crate).  It will be a happy day for both of us when she goes back to the coop for good.

Chinese Medicine at the Vet's Office

Despite being on some pretty strong antibiotics, Batty wasn't doing so hot a couple of days ago.  To be blunt, she smelled like rot and probably felt worse than she smelled.  Tuesday morning I took her in to the Exotic Animal Doc and they cleaned up the infection, which went way deeper than it looked.  When they were done, the situation looked pretty dire and we began to talk about euthanasia.  Doc Exotic gave her 50/50 odds, but sent me home with a second antibiotic and a new herbal poultice to try.  I wasn't too hopeful, but two days later, Batty is feistier, more active, and the wound has completely dried up and appears to be shrinking.  Also, she has started pecking Tiny Dog again.  That's got to be a good sign.

The herbal stuff is blowing my mind. It's called "Golden Yellow" and stains like a mother. And it smells disturbingly like curry. I know it has a lot of turmeric in it, but I'm unsure of the other ingredients. I googled the heck out of it, but only found ingredients listed in Chinese. Apparently the recipe is a closely guarded secret. I did find story after tale after anecdote of the success people have had using this stuff on the most hideous of open wounds. Dogs with disgusting tumors that disappear and horses with gross facial boils that recover completely. All of the stories have to do with pets though. Seems like maybe humans might want to give this stuff a try, too, right?

So, I'm optimistic.  We'll see what Doc Exotic says tomorrow.  Give us all the love you've got.  We need it!

Both Kinds of News

Good news first.

Batty is walking more.  And eating more.  And she has started to drink.

She went outside today and enjoyed a grassy snack. 

Her sisters paid her a visit.

Her dog paid her a visit.

Her cat paid her a visit.

Everybody was very polite to Batty.  They told her how pretty she looked in the sunshine and ignored the big yucky thing on her back.

Now the bad news.

The Evil Hungry Stray was back today. 

 I chased him off before he could do any damage.

I think he saw the murderous gleam in my eyes.

Then I spent two hours reinforcing the coop.

Also, the yucky thing on Batty's back has a foul odor.

We're going back to the vet tomorrow.

Wish us luck.

Lost and Found

A pack of three stray dogs has been running through the neighborhood for the past week or so.  Animal control has been called.  And called. And called again.  But honestly, I'm not sure they're all that catchable.  They're fast and there is still too much country around here for them to slip away into.  Sigh. 

This morning, while I was getting ready for work, one or more of the stray dogs managed to get over the 5 foot fence and into the backyard with the chickens.  It was fast and brutal and I didn't even know what was happening until it was all over and the dogs had slipped away again.  Here are the ones we lost, the way they looked in their baby days:

Miss Mouse

Goldilocks

Black Beak

Storm Cloud

Such sweet and simple little creatures.  We will miss them.

Now I want to tell you about the one we found, because it actually could have been worse. (Warning: Somewhat graphic picture of our dog bite survivor below.)  I won't go into the details, but after several hours of cleaning up loose feathers and worse, it looked like we had two who came through completely unscathed, two who had somehow escaped only slightly scathed but extremely scared, four who were completely lost to us, and one who seemed to have completely disappeared.  I was especially grieving for our Batty, who has always been the most snuggly.  Look at her here as a baby with Isaac:

I counted three separate places in the yard where the dog must have attacked on three separate occassions.  It looked like hundreds of her feathers were spread across the grass.  The last spot was near the fence next to some gouges in the ground where the dog had leapt out of the yard.  I figured he had taken her with him.  Anyway, for some reason my heart was insisting that, even though I couldn't bury Batty, I needed to gather up every last little fallen feather so that I could at least bury those.  I guess I was kind of crying, so I didn't hear it at first.  It was a soft, very, very tiny little trill.  Like the sweet noises hens make on the roost to sing each other to sleep at night.  It was coming from that small dark space behind the deck steps.  I got on my hands and knees, crawled in there, and couldn't believe it when I saw Batty down there with her face tucked into the corner of the corner.  She was hiding.  I don't know how, but each time the dog had gone after her, she'd escaped.  And then she'd hid so well I'd almost missed her under there.  She was a mess.  You don't want to know.  We had to take her to Raleigh to the exotic animal vet (since when are chickens exotic?), but she handled it all brilliantly.  She even laid an egg while under anesthesia. That's what I call a good girl.  Isaac thinks she has earned a new name, so now he calls her Brave Batty.  She's got a lot of healing to do, but here she is, in all of her injured glory:

I think she looks kind of smug.  She's always wanted to be a house chicken and now she's got her wish, doctor's orders.  At least for the next two weeks, anyway. 

And, in the words of F. Gump, that's all I have to say about that.