i just lost one of my chckens, Terra. She was jumped by a racoon that lives next door. My wife and I had been working in our front yard when we realized it was dark. Normally, we put her into her coop before it gets dark. On a rare night, we might forget to close the coop door and lock her in. Terra was very good at night to get herself inside the coop and nest for the night on one of her wooden dowel perches.
We are inside our house when we hear blood-filled screams and lots of chaos and feathers being rustled. Kim reached the back doors in time to see Terra running wildly and trying to shake off a racoon on her back. Finally, with Kim and the animals yelling, the racoon let go of Terra who ran straight into our house and tried to hide from the predator. The racoon climbed the fence and stood there glaring at my wife who finally threw an empty chicken broth box at the racoon. Terra was in shock and badly cut up by the razor sharp claws of the badass racoon. It was almost like the racoon sliced her as if she was filetting Terra. She was oozing blood but not gushing blood. It was 10pm on a Sunday night. Kim was upset, “You know,” she said. “It is our fault she got hurt. I feel guilty about what happened. We have to take her to the vet.”
“This could be difficult. Try to find a vet open at 10pm on a weekend. And then try to find one that works on chickens on a Sunday night.”
Zack, my oldest son’s girlfriend works with a vet. I call Zack and Elyse, his girlfriend, finds a vet in Thousand Oaks. They come over and drive us to the vet. They take Terra inside the vet hospital to examine her. Thirty minutes later, after giving her oxygen and hooking her up to an IV for fluids. You do not want her to get dehydrated do you?
After another thirty minutes, the vet comes out, “You have three choices: 1. do nothing and she will probably die. 2. You take her home, give her an antibiotic three times a day, plus pain medication twice a day, and flush and dress her wounds three times a day, or 3. we operate on her and flush her wounds, stitch her up and she’ll stay overnight, we give her her meds, you do the same when she goes home. We have to put her under to stitch her up. We take a few minutes and basically, in order to maintain order in my house, I agree to the surgery, stitches, anethesia, another day of recovery. Ok, for $1300 we let the vet work on Terra. She was groggy when we picked her up. We had to keep her inside, as chickens like to take dust baths to keep the mites and parasites from flourishing. We could not run the risk of her getting infected after all she had been through. Terra, not being able to exercise, got real thin and weak. We return to the vet for a post-stitch removal, two weeks after they were put in. All was good except one area did not close up and needed more stitches and another two weeks of being in our living room in an old coop we had since she was little. Another two weeks go by and we take her back to the vet. We were cleared to let her go outside. She was not up to speed…weak, barely walking, and thin. She did not have the strength to hop or flutter up to her perch at night. We kept all eyes on the racoon. We did not need another “incident” with the clever and smart bandit.
Terra never really gained back her strength, ate very little, and was moving slow. She got to the point where she was staggering when she walked and would fall down and couldn’t get up. Then her breathing slowed, and we thought this was it. Three days later she was still alive. We bring out an infrared lamp to keep her warm. Her breathing gets shallower, and less strong. We spend the night outside with her. Finally, after 3 to 4 hours she is still alive but hardly moving. Kim can not take it any more and decides to give her a double then another double doze of her pain medication. She starts moving slower and slower. I say to Kim, “Let’s go to sleep, this can go on for hours.” In the morning, she’s still alive. Kim goes to her school and in a few hours, she is still alive. I pick out a spot and start the hose running to let water soften up the ground.
Finally, she stops moving, her breathing stops, then her heart. I put her in a couple of brown bags with fresh straw, wrap her up in the brown bags, put her in a white kitchen plastic bag, then I fit her inside a box, seal it shut, put her in the bottom of the hole, fill it with dirt after I place concrete stepping stones around the box and one on top, to keep any prospectors…possums, or racoons, from digging her up. Terra, we love you, and I hope you can forgive us for not locking you into the coop on time. May you rest in peace.

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