Badly wounded hen

Had a coyote visit overnight. My rooster and one hen fly out of the pen regularly, and this morning disaster struck. My rooster is gone, just a pile of feathers. Ironically, he was headed for the stew pot this weekend anyway. He was just too aggressive. But today he met his match.

Sadly, one of my hens was also attacked and injured. She has puncture wounds - big ones - on her back and sides.

Can I use any horse wound products to help her heal? That's all I have on hand. I can go to the farm store today - will there be anything I can get her to help her survive? She's mobile, bright, and otherwise fine, except for these grievous wounds. Tough girl. I need some help please!!

I would put her on Polytonne A Superbooster or Tetracyline antibiotics. Then you can use polysporin on the wounds themselves, if you can wash the wounds out and treat with Peroxide, then polysporin.
We had a little hen that got pecked really bad by our turkeys last year, right to the bone. I treated her like above and within 2 weeks everythin was healed over and she lived on for a long time, even survived another coyote attack at her new home.
Chickens heal very well, so just keep the infections away and she should be ok.

Thanks Jayme - I'm thinking those first 2 items are available at farm stores as poultry helpers? I will look.

It's really good to hear that you think it's possible she could heal. She is one of my favourite hens (why does it always happen this way!!) and I had struggled with clipping her wing because she loved to be out. Stupid me.

What great luck! I looked in my first aid cupboard and found the bag of Oxytetracycline that a friend had given me a looong time ago. It expired a year ago but I'm going to mix some up anyway. I will look for a fresh bag at the store.

Farmchiq -
Uno swears by honey, and lots of people have endorsed this, and say it works wonderfully well.
Chickens have phenomenal immune systems, and really don'rt seem to contract infection easily. Unless a vital organ is punctured, I'd guess that your hen has a good chance.

My two cents w.r.t. tetracycline - indiscriminate precautionary use of antibiotics is the root of our current problems with antibiotic resistant bacteria; although one small farmer isn't going to have a huge impact, it's still best to save the antibiotics for when you really need them.

I've used blue lotion, a horse wound product on my chickens and it works great. One hen wounded her foot and even though she kept pulling off her bandage, it never got infected walking around in the coop litter and poop. But I agree with Hidden, chickens are tough birds and I hope she pulls through for you!

Honey really does work! I had a fox decimate my entire flock last year and the survivors had various wounds, from puntures to gapping tears. One poor hen even had her entire side ripped open right to the meat. Ugh. She probably should have had stitches, but I didn't have any sutures and couldn't get a normal sewing needle through her thick skin. So what I did was brewed up homemade saline solution using epsom salt and water to flush the wounds, then packed them full of honey (I did use neosporin the first day but quickly ran out) and wrapped with maxi pads held by gauze and medi-tape. I know it sounds funny, but I was desperate. I changed the dressings twice a day, flushing each time with the saline and reapplying the honey. Everyone healed up beautifully and you'd never know to look at them. So call me a believer. Good luck with your hen, I hope she recovers.

My usual routine involves peroxide. Especially with a puncture from an animal like that...it will clean it right out. Then if possible I just leave it alone. I might peroxide something like that 2x a day for 2 days and then keep a close eye on it. I prefer to fight infections that way than antibiotics...but those may be required from a coyote bite. I know if you take an animal to the vet for any injury 90% of the time they send you home with A/B just to be safe.
For my horsey kit...it's peroxide, and letting nature do it's thing. Polysporin if it needs help. Honestly though I've seen some pretty yucky injuries and all healed well on their own under close watch. I haven't tried honey...but heard of the wonderful properties.

A fabulous product to give as an internal alternative to antibiotics is Coloidal Silver.