Stupid dog took a bite out of my chicken. (She appears to be stable, but now what?) (Pictures added,

While our chickens were having their sunday morning sabbatical, a large yellow lab came into the yard and tried to have one of them for lunch. The chicken made a racket and the dog dropped the chicken and took off while we came running to the chicken's defense. After coaxing all the chickens back into the coop we examined the one that had been bit.

It appears the dog mostly got a mouth full of feathers, and just punctured a little bit of the skin. There was very little blood and just a small 1 inch tear to the skin. We cleaned it up with saline solution and put some triple antibiotic cream on it and covered it with gauze held in place with a loose ace bandage around the bird, under her wings (it's near her tail)

She is now resting reasonably comfortably in a cat carrier in our basement guest bedroom. She's eating and drinking and making sad pathetic chirping noises.

She seems to be pretty resilient and doing well but I am concerned that she's going to be lonely, socially isolated and maladjusted to the outside temperature.

Should we put the cat carrier out in the coop? Just during the day? At night? Take her out for visits?

How long do we need to keep her inside? Do we need to do anything else to make sure the skin heals?

It looks like the bite only got through the skin, not the fat, there is no sign of muscle.

Also, having spray saline on hand was incredibly useful!

It sounds like you've done everything right so far! I would keep her inside for at least a day to make sure things are still healing and she's doing well. My biggest concern (next to the wound) would be the other chickens picking at the wound and making it worse. So, as long as it isn't an exposed wound she can probably go around the others.

I also think she'll be fine by herself for a few days. If she still needs to be separate after that you could take her out in the coop to see her "friends".

I hope someone else can chime in with more specific help. Around here, it seems that all of our animal emergencies happen on Sundays, too. We had this happen to one our chickens a few months ago. I'm glad you got to her in time!

She's still in side, in a cat carrier in our basement guest room. She's healing pretty well, the gauze is only coming away with a tiny bit of blood every 6 hours now. I'm contemplating putting "spray bandage" on the wound? I figure once it's not bleeding and looks ok, she can go outside?

I would caution using spray bandage on an open wound if it is deep. If not too deep or wide, go right ahead, I use it on small cuts with my girls all the time.

I had same thing happen a few months ago with my Silver Laced Wyandotte, I mixed a weak batch of Epsom salts & warm water & rinsed her wounds a couple of times a day, then took her to my vet who gave her a shot of antibiotic & gave me some spray antibiotic to help in the wound healing. I kept her inside the house for a few weeks because she had trouble walking & the other chickens picked on her, but my DBF made her a little "recovery" coop so she could be put outside to get some sun & do a few chicken stuff. She's wonderful now, has been put back out with the others in the main run is laying now. I'd let her out of the carrier so she can get some exercise, it'll speed her recovery.

the wound is only maybe an inch long. I don't think it's deep since it didn't bleed much at all and I couldn't see muscle, but I am not sure as this is our first injury. I think the dog mostly got a mouthful of feathers!

I was contemplating making her a little "sweater wrap" which would cover up the wound and the lack of feathers and seeing if the other chicken pick on her. They seem to miss her/are confused as to where she went.

So, here are some pictures of the wound site, along with a picture of the poop (Which could just be the normal gloopy one, most of it is hard normal poop, but there's some that is loose, I'm mostly concerned because of the dark color.)

Does the yellow on the wound mean it's healing (like a human yellow scab would mean?) or is that a bad sign? It doesn't smell bad. All these pictures are of the same spot, just from different distances.

Also after irrigation there was no blood on the blotting gauze, so we just put some antibiotic cream on since she was going to be going straight to sleep after the cleaning (We woke her up for the cleaning)

It doesn't look too bad so, if it was mine - I would spray it good with the purple BluKote and put her back in with the other hens. Recoat it with the BluKote daily so, it stays well covered and it should heal up fine. JMHO Good Luck!