I'd take her to a vet. Meanwhile, guard against shock, which can kill. Keep her warm and quiet, keep up with the antibiotic ointment, Pedialyte and applesauce. You need to keep her hydrated and some food energy in her until she is eating and drinking on her own. Live mealworms are a treat for chickens if you can get her to eat them, they are also a great source of protein which her body will need lots of to heal. Baby food is good also--the stuff for youngest babies with no chunks--get one meat and one green and one orange vegetable, mix them together with a bit of baby cereal--the stuff at the grocery store, it looks like a flaky powder. Get it warm (at least her body temp) and handfeed her with it, using what is called an 'irrigation syringe' you can get from any pharmacy (it's a plastic syringe with no needle, no prescription needed). Birds will eat warm food more readily than cold or room temp, and their body won't have to expend energy warming it up. Every little bit helps. Are you sure it wasn't a raccoon? It sounds like classic raccoon attack injury to me--the back eaten out, basically. Keep an eye out for raccoons in case he comes back and brings friends, protect your other birds. If she recovers, but the wound needs help healing, see this great article on cell migration: http://www.shagbarkbantams.com/cell.htm Good for you for giving her a chance and helping out, hope she makes it! Velvet ~:>

"I like the ambience you created trancegemini, I hope I can stay awake LOL" LOL, it's a very relaxing way to spend the evening and if your other pets are like mine they'll meander on in and go to sleep too :). It's good that you know your vet and trust her but just ask her any questions about things that worry you, such as has she had any pain meds etc. I'm used to having my dogs go off for surgery but for some reason I was really worried when my baby went off for her first surgery. I think it was just because she was so young and little but I really wish I hadn't worried so much looking back because apart from sleeping off the anaesthetic she didn't have any problems with it. The hard part was keeping her quiet over the next week so she wasn't running around or jumping because they bounce back so quick and don't realise they have to take it easy. Let us know how the surgery goes ok? I'll be thinking of your little poppet on Thursday :)

ci_lantro - that is very good information about Voltaren and Volfenac. thank you. Shows you how much my doctor knows about meds, I apologize for believing him, and appreciate you correcting my ignorance. I have always had the idea that if physicians diagnose and pharmacists prescribe we'd be so much better off. Don't you? Also, I believe that pharmacists should be able to dispense supplements, herbal, alternative, and non-traditional medications based on diagnoses, and follow you as your sole pharmacist no matter where you live in the US. They have years of intensive training where I think physicians prescribe what the last pharmaceutical rep were touting. Probably callous or snide, sorry. Reading the anecdotes here it looks like y'all have been personally drilling down to what aggravates and what alleviates for you without meds. I will start looking at my diet and keep a diary of what foods help or hurt though I've never felt there was a difference. Right now the only thing I've identified is that a drop in barometric pressure makes my arthritis flare up, like the coming of a storm or a drastic drop in temperature, but not a change into dry warm weather. I also know that the more active I am the less likely that my arthritis will flare. I follow the Mayo Clinic Hand Exercises for Arthritis that totally works for me and do it pretty much mindlessly while I am reading or being bored in front of the TV, or being a passenger. After a few months of this (and continued from 5 years ago) I could really see that the progression of arthritis in my hands had lessened and years later, I think, has kept the worsening of it at bay. But, now I have it in my neck/spine bones from several head-on collisions years ago that even though chiropractic has helped, there is no exercise for those bones. Y'all have given me much to consider.

I second the small size Salon Pas patches. Although I prefer the ones without Lidocaine. I think they operate more as an acu-pressure point than anything for me. I can put lotions with the same ingredients on and they do little. I tried the larger size and the hot type and they did little for my hip pain. The mention of the knot now has me wondering if that is what the massage therapist's grabbing, lifting slightly, then rotating the butt cheek on the side of my hip that hurts as the last thing that was done was for. At the immediate time I was "what the" but I realized that the pain that was still there immediately after the massage was gone by the time I returned home. The shop has closed down so I will need to find another place when things are safer.