We noticed at the end of last week that because he's been so aggressive and getting on Goldie's back way too much, his toenails are pulling out the feathers and cutting down to the skin and even cutting the skin on her back. Yowchy!! In fact, last Friday, Jeffrey caught her to show me the wounds and under her wings it looked like a skinless chicken breast you would see in the store. No feathers, no skin, nothing but meat!
So, at this point, Jeffrey goes into full "bleeding heart" mode. "We MUST take her to the vet!" "She'll die, she'll die!" "Maybe we should just kill Hawkeye! It's the only way to keep Goldie safe!" Admittedly, my heart was beginning to bleed as well, though a trip to the vet was out of the question. I mean, we really like Goldie and all, but even if we could find a vet to treat chickens (which might not too hard here in Podunkville, I mean Castroville), BUT we don't really want to spend hundreds of dollars for the vet to give her some antibiotics (at best) or tell us to just go ahead and kill her (at worst).
So I went into "WWMID" mode. (What Would Ma Ingalls Do?) I had plans to pull out the liquid bandage and pull the skin back together, maybe a garlic poltice (a poultry poultice...that's clever!), some neosporin, an ace bandage??, all kinds of things were running through my brain. But we didn't do any of those things . I wasn't sure what to do so we did the best thing.....we waited until Michael got home and asked him what we should do. Know what he said....he said he wouldn't do anything. I think his words were "Well, I don't mean to sound harsh, but if an animal doesn't know how to take care of itself and keep another animal from killing it, then....what can you do". Wow! No bleeding heart there!! Maybe that's the WWPID answer! (Pa Ingalls) I dunno to me it sounds a little Darwinian! Survival of the fittest and all that....(I'd like to go on record at this point and say, my husband is NOT in any respects Darwinian!) However, later he did also say that if I felt like there was anything that I really needed to do, then do it. (Perhaps this was in response to the shocked look in my eyes while he was saying his piece! :-) )
He actually decided to let Goldie stay alone in the coop in the mornings when everyone else gets out. That time seems to be the time when Hawkeye seems the most aggressive, then letting her out a couple of hours later. The funny thing is watching all the other hens and roosters while Goldie is alone in the coop. They cluck and crow and hang around the coop while Goldie looks for a way out. It's like things just aren't right in the chicken world while Goldie is in there. Squanto (who used to be Pocahantas until we realized SHE was a HE) and Hawkeye strut around squaking and calling out to Goldie. The only one who doesn't get in the mix of all this is Pigeon. For whatever reason, she's fine to just hang on her own most of the time. She's not one of the "favorites", I guess.
Well, we looked on the internet as well, and this is not an uncommon problem. The suggestion was made to clip the roosters fingernails (Hmmm....THAT sounds easy!!) or make a covering for the hen's back made of denim and nylon strings. Now I could probably do that. I'm going to look at the library for the book that was recommended that showed how to do that.
In the mean time, yesterday I just HAD to take some action.
Step 1....catch Goldie. Jeffrey and Josiah lured her (and all her friends and the goats) over with Central Market corn chips....organic even! :-) Nothin' but the best for our farmily!
Step 2...Get the meds. I went for the least invasive, quickest option. Neosporin...it's fast, it's easy, it's effective (sounds like a commercial!)
Step 3....put it on her ouchies. I was actually glad to see that the "boneless chicken" look has now turned into a "Roasted turkey leg" look. It's getting scabby, which hopefully means it's healing. The bad news was that we noticed she had a big scab under her other wing as well. It was about the size of a quarter, while the first one was about the size of Josiah's palm.
Get it goopy!
That's meds NOT worms in the picture, BTW!
2 comments:
Ma Ingalls would be proud, even though she didn't have Neosporin.
Whoever took the pictures did a nice job, too! Make sure you get pics of the denim and string thing. That should be interesting! :-)
Well sounds like the roosters don't like the chickens.:-)
But I'm glad you found something to help it.
Get clorhine on it. That will make it heal.LOL
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