Orpington won’t eat or drink independently almost 2 weeks after raccoon attack!! Help!!

[ChickenMama1991]

One of our favorite buff orpington’s was one of the only chickens to get attacked by a raccoon, we caught the raccoon in the attack and scared it away, she had many feathers pulled from the back of her head and neck and was bloody and barely responsive when we found her. We immediately isolated her in the house and she got up and ran to a box and climbed in, but went back to being barely responsive (eyes closed, limp, laying down). We weren’t sure she would make it through the night and didn’t want to traumatize her more so we just left her in the box with a towel. The next morning she was actually doing better. We attempted to clean her up and it looked like she was basically scalped, had some lacerations between beak and comb, and maybe had some punctures by her beak, but not bad.

We started syringe feeding electrolytes and mashed food and she turned around. Now her comb and face are back to bright red, eyes are bright and she’s able to walk and roost. But she’s still lethargic and shows little interest in food (might peck at treats a bit when scattered, but really doesn’t consume anything despite our best efforts) and shows no interest in water. It’s been almost 2 weeks of syringe feeding and watering with very little progress getting her to eat on her own. Her wounds are healing, but still bare head/neck with scans. Is this normal?? How much longer should we syringe feed? When we stop and try to encourage her to eat she declines again. Help!!!

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. Sorry that your chicken is not yet interested in eating. Have you weighed her on a kitchen scale to monitor her weight? Tube feeding for a short time may be one thing you might like to try to keep up with her nutrition. Another method you can use is torpedo feeding of small bits of feed. Here is a thread about this method:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...eeding-what-is-it-and-when-to-use-it.1532744/

Many chickens will take small treats of scrambled egg, tuna, canned cat food to interest them in eating. I add water to all of those. A hen who could not stay upright for over a month was kept alive with a bowl of wet chicken feed and alternating foods twice a day. She eventually started walking normally, and then ate on her own.

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

If she's still isolated in your house you might try either bringing a friend inside for her or letting her outside with a friend for bit depending on how well she is, though you'd need to watch closely to make sure no one starts pecking on her.

 

[ChickenMama1991]

Welcome to BYC. Sorry that your chicken is not yet interested in eating. Have you weighed her on a kitchen scale to monitor her weight? Tube feeding for a short time may be one thing you might like to try to keep up with her nutrition. Another method you can use is torpedo feeding of small bits of feed. Here is a thread about this method:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...eeding-what-is-it-and-when-to-use-it.1532744/

Many chickens will take small treats of scrambled egg, tuna, canned cat food to interest them in eating. I add water to all of those. A hen who could not stay upright for over a month was kept alive with a bowl of wet chicken feed and alternating foods twice a day. She eventually started walking normally, and then ate on her own.

Hi thank you for the response! We did start weighing her today per other threads recommending the same thing, it’s clear she’s lost weight. We are syringe feeding wet feed, which she swallows easily and will eat very small amounts (1 tsp) of spoon fed food. Will not take any water independently or from a spoon, so we are fully syringe watering her at this point.

 

[ChickenMama1991]

If she's still isolated in your house you might try either bringing a friend inside for her or letting her outside with a friend for bit depending on how well she is, though you'd need to watch closely to make sure no one starts pecking on her.

Thank you for your response! I have both tried bringing in a friend (completely ignored and turned her tail to her and closed her eyes) and then once she started improving we put her back out in her yard (but separated) and she was much more lively, pecked a bit at grain and actually moved around for the first time, but still drank no water and maybe only ate a few bites of corn.

 

[ChickenMama1991]

Welcome to BYC. Sorry that your chicken is not yet interested in eating. Have you weighed her on a kitchen scale to monitor her weight? Tube feeding for a short time may be one thing you might like to try to keep up with her nutrition. Another method you can use is torpedo feeding of small bits of feed. Here is a thread about this method:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...eeding-what-is-it-and-when-to-use-it.1532744/

Many chickens will take small treats of scrambled egg, tuna, canned cat food to interest them in eating. I add water to all of those. A hen who could not stay upright for over a month was kept alive with a bowl of wet chicken feed and alternating foods twice a day. She eventually started walking normally, and then ate on her own.

Update: the torpedo feeding has now started working, she’s getting much more solid food that way now, so thank you for the tip!

However, she still isn’t eating anything on her own. Now that the scabs have started lifting it looks like she got a pretty deep puncture very close to the top of her beak, do you think this would be the cause of her not earring??? Do you think she can’t smell and has no interest? It’s been almost 3 weeks now

 

[Eggcessive]

Glad that she is taking the torpedo food. Could you post a picture of her beak? Is she walking around and acting normally?

 

[ChickenMama1991]

Glad that she is taking the torpedo food. Could you post a picture of her beak? Is she walking around and acting normally?

 

[ChickenMama1991]

you can see the poke there, I tried following some advice on draining sinuses to see if anything came out and she did get some discharge out of the opposite side, but nothing on the side with the poke

 

[ChickenMama1991]

One of our favorite buff orpington’s was one of the only chickens to get attacked by a raccoon, we caught the raccoon in the attack and scared it away, she had many feathers pulled from the back of her head and neck and was bloody and barely responsive when we found her. We immediately isolated her in the house and she got up and ran to a box and climbed in, but went back to being barely responsive (eyes closed, limp, laying down). We weren’t sure she would make it through the night and didn’t want to traumatize her more so we just left her in the box with a towel. The next morning she was actually doing better. We attempted to clean her up and it looked like she was basically scalped, had some lacerations between beak and comb, and maybe had some punctures by her beak, but not bad.

We started syringe feeding electrolytes and mashed food and she turned around. Now her comb and face are back to bright red, eyes are bright and she’s able to walk and roost. But she’s still lethargic and shows little interest in food (might peck at treats a bit when scattered, but really doesn’t consume anything despite our best efforts) and shows no interest in water. It’s been almost 2 weeks of syringe feeding and watering with very little progress getting her to eat on her own. Her wounds are healing, but still bare head/neck with scans. Is this normal?? How much longer should we syringe feed? When we stop and try to encourage her to eat she declines again. Help!!!

These are what here injuries look like now, the scab on the back of her head is just about falling off and the skin under looks healthy. The puncture by her beak looked deep, seems to be improving. She is walking and doing some normal chicken things, but way lethargic and just wants to sit on perch and sleep for most part.