Normally, putting the hens to bed for the night is a tranquil, pleasant routine. By the time I get out to the coop, Nellie and Hope are up on the roost, so all I have to do is lock them in, to protect them from predators.
Normally.
The scene that greeted me last night was anything but normal. Nellie was standing on the coop floor, sounding upset. Her left foot was bleeding. The roost was streaked with blood. Good-sized patches of the coop's bedding were "painted" a bright red. Racing back to the house, I filled Liz in. Once we got to the coop, we removed Nellie so Liz could examine her while I held her.
At first, it seemed as though Nellie had at least two open wounds, but on closer examination, it became clear that she had broken one toenail. What was left of the nail was bleeding profusely, but once Liz identified the source she applied cornstarch, which acts as a coagulant.
Initially, the cornstarch seemed to have no effect. It took a lot of patience, a lot of time and a lot of cornstarch to stanch the bleeding, but it finally slowed, and eventually stopped. We thought of isolating Nellie in a separate enclosure overnight, but chickens are social animals and we only have the two Rhode Island Red hens right now. Each would be agitated if separated from the other. So I removed and replaced the bloody pine shavings and washed the blood from the roost. We carefully placed Nellie on the roost beside Hope. We were not at all sure what we would find in the morning. Would the wound reopen? Would Nellie lose even more blood than she had already? I tried not to imagine the worst-case scenario.
The hens were not up and waiting at the window when I went out to feed them at dawn. That was very unusual. But when I placed food and water in the pen, I heard one hen, and then the other one, jump down from the roost to the floor.
As always, Nellie was the first to emerge from the coop when I opened the door. She wasn’t bleeding, although she had bled a bit during the night, leaving a sizable red spot in the bedding beneath the perch. She walked slowly at first, and her comb was paler than normal. But she did not limp, and she began eating fairly quickly. She even laid a larger-than-normal egg later in the morning. It seemed the crisis had passed.
Readers who do not own chickens as pets may shake their heads and mumble. “Geez, it’s only a chicken, for crying out loud.” But when a pet is hurt or sick, does the species really matter? If a child’s guinea pig and an adult’s champion Springer Spaniel are wounded, is the child any less fretful than the adult, simply because her pet is such a "humble" creature?
Normally.
The scene that greeted me last night was anything but normal. Nellie was standing on the coop floor, sounding upset. Her left foot was bleeding. The roost was streaked with blood. Good-sized patches of the coop's bedding were "painted" a bright red. Racing back to the house, I filled Liz in. Once we got to the coop, we removed Nellie so Liz could examine her while I held her.
At first, it seemed as though Nellie had at least two open wounds, but on closer examination, it became clear that she had broken one toenail. What was left of the nail was bleeding profusely, but once Liz identified the source she applied cornstarch, which acts as a coagulant.
Initially, the cornstarch seemed to have no effect. It took a lot of patience, a lot of time and a lot of cornstarch to stanch the bleeding, but it finally slowed, and eventually stopped. We thought of isolating Nellie in a separate enclosure overnight, but chickens are social animals and we only have the two Rhode Island Red hens right now. Each would be agitated if separated from the other. So I removed and replaced the bloody pine shavings and washed the blood from the roost. We carefully placed Nellie on the roost beside Hope. We were not at all sure what we would find in the morning. Would the wound reopen? Would Nellie lose even more blood than she had already? I tried not to imagine the worst-case scenario.
The hens were not up and waiting at the window when I went out to feed them at dawn. That was very unusual. But when I placed food and water in the pen, I heard one hen, and then the other one, jump down from the roost to the floor.
As always, Nellie was the first to emerge from the coop when I opened the door. She wasn’t bleeding, although she had bled a bit during the night, leaving a sizable red spot in the bedding beneath the perch. She walked slowly at first, and her comb was paler than normal. But she did not limp, and she began eating fairly quickly. She even laid a larger-than-normal egg later in the morning. It seemed the crisis had passed.
Readers who do not own chickens as pets may shake their heads and mumble. “Geez, it’s only a chicken, for crying out loud.” But when a pet is hurt or sick, does the species really matter? If a child’s guinea pig and an adult’s champion Springer Spaniel are wounded, is the child any less fretful than the adult, simply because her pet is such a "humble" creature?
Chickens have toenails?
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