A Sad Friday Night

This is Clarabelle, aka "Sherman".

One of the Turkettes, she is so very tame and follows me around a lot. Recently, she has been nesting in the pasture, where I left high grass for the girls to lay their eggs.

Yesterday, I noticed she was hanging a wing down. 

I looked underneath, and found an area that appeared to be 5 x 5, where skin had been pulled off by a predator, probably a raccoon.

I treated it with iodine spray three times, I have a real fear of maggots, having lost a wonderful goose to a maggot infection.

Today, Keith and I gently held her to doctor her, and we discovered the wound is much more grievous than I thought, that it extends down into the leg, and is deep. 

So far, no maggots, but Keith who is ALWAYS an optimist, doubts that it's survivable. 

We are watching her, and I have antibiotic spray to put on it.  She cannot fly up to their "roost", the roof of a dog house in the little henyard, so Keith has put them in for the night, and Annabelle is up on the roost.  Clara cannot get up there.  We don't know if the attack occurred in the pasture... or if a raccoon came over the top and down into the henyard and got her during the night. 

Keith has promised me that she will not suffer like Samantha did, whose infection we found far too late. 

So far she is eating and drinking, and walking with a real limp, very slowly.  It hurts my heart that this good girl who is so trusting is in pain.

Keith will do the right thing if we think the pain is too great for her, but darn it... it's a fact of life on a farm that you can't get around.

Would the raccoon have come in with the llamas here?  We don't know that.

We know possums always have, so we are not blaming ourselves, it's just nature.

It still hurts.

Linking tonight with Farmchick, for Farm Photo Fridays.