Snow White’s very bad day

Yesterday one of our chickens, Snow White, was attacked by a dog. The dog didn’t kill her, but she had a deep puncture  wound on her back and a lot of skin missing behind one of her legs. Normally, we wouldn’t have cared that much, but Snowflake is the family’s favorite chicken. She likes to be held, will perch on your shoulder, and is very docile. (Yes, I realize that the previous sentence makes me sound like a crazy chicken person.)

We isolated Snow White from the rest of the chickens until we decided what to do. She was pretty injured, and her wounds did not look like they would heal easily. We thought it might be best to try to stitch her up, especially the wound behind her leg. We even put a towel on the deck and had saline solution, a needle, and thread ready. As I held her while Ashlee readied the needle, we decided we couldn’t go through with it, and would take the chicken to the vet the next day.

First off, I’m a little embarrassed. We took a $2.50 chicken to the vet for a bill that will be substantial, but I just couldn’t resist my sons’ and my wife’s puppy-dog looks. The vet said she’ll probably be fine. She won’t get stitches and we’ll be giving her antibiotics and putting cream on the wounds. We’ll have to isolate her, because we won’t be eating her eggs while she’s on antibiotics.

And that is the story of Snow White’s very bad day.

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