Loss of feathers around chick’s eye

[juniperz]

Chick is 3 weeks old. Being raised in a metal tub with shavings with 19 other chicks. 2 of those chicks have had issues with pecking others, but I’ve only seen them peck/grab feet and toes so far. The left side of her face is affected but the right looks normal. The thing stuck to the surface of her beak in the photos is a tiny piece of shavings. Anyone know what’s going on?

 

[Eleni12]

Looks like her eye is irritated maybe she got some of the shaving in her eye. It happened to my hen and took over a week to heal. I used some dog eye drops and just let it heal up. My girl would scratch herself around the eye bc it would itch maybe that's why your chick eye looks like it is missing some small feathers

 

[Eggcessive]

It looks like the left eye has had a peck or has discharge which could mean debris in the eye, a peck wound, or a possible respiratory disease, such as MG. Scratching her eye may have caused the loss of feathers. Using saline to rinse the eye, clean off any crusty drainage, and you can then apply either Terramycin eye or plain Neosporin ointment to the eye 2-3 times day. Does the chick have any gasping or crackles when it breathes?

 

[juniperz]

Thank you both! I didn't have time to tend to her today, but I will rinse her eye and put Neosporin on the spot tomorrow. I hadn't noticed the red spot on the corner of her eye before, but it looks super obvious when viewing the big photos on my computer! And I will listen to her breathing.

 

[juniperz]

Just an update to say that the chick has fully recovered from whatever it was.