Chicken sick - I need help PLEASE! Pic Heavy

binders

Songster
10 Years
Sep 4, 2011
266
8
159
I have posted several times about various things I have been seeing. Here is the situation:
Flock of 7 chicken, new to my house on Aug 7th and 8th. Got 4 from one person and 3 others from another. Both respected breeders in the area. They where between 1 1/2 to 3 months old. When I first started to notice that the welsummer was being listless and wanting to keep her eyes closed and wanted to rest a lot, I brought her into the house in a dog crateand feed her well and kept her away from the pullet that was giving her a hard time. She was missing quite a few feathers from her vent area and I thought that she was just being picked on by one pullet. I thought a little R&R would be good for her. She did seem to perk up after a while and didn't seem to like it in the house anymore so I reintroduced her back into the flock and that seemed to go well. I haven't seen anymore feather plucking and she seems to have been accepted back. When I put her back I had noticed that there were some little sneezes ( it took me a while to realized that is what they were) and so I decided to put everyone on duramycin - 10 for 10 days. There seemed to be no change and the sneezing is getting worse and the welsummer's eye was still bad. Yesterday I started treating the eye with Terramycin. I don't see any nasal discharge and there doesn't seem to be any bad smell. This is were I am today:
1) What type of bird , age and weight. Welsummer
2) What is the behavior, exactly. Swollen eye (see picture below) and not being very active and many of the chickens are sneezing (don't know if she is)
3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms? 3-4 weeks
4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms? Sneezing but I'm not sure if it in everyone (7 in flock)
5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma. The pullet in question was being feather pick on vent when I first got her. I haven't seen that going on for several weeks
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation. I noticed this (the eye) about 3 weeks after I got the pullets. Sneezing about 3 weeks
7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all. Yes but all of them look a little thin especially her.
8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny?What is the color? The welsummers poop is runny/watery with chucks. Everyone else seems normal
9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far? I treated the whole flock with duramycin-10 for 10 days in their water. Also started with terramycin ointment for the eye of the welsummer
10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet? I would like to treat myself if possible. Do not want to have to go to a vet. Don't even know if there is one around here that treats chickens.
11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
12) Describe the housing/bedding in use They are in a small bought coop (CCONLY R-32, picture below) with a 200 sqft run around the coop. They free range for 1-2 hours every eveneing (when I can put my 4 dogs in) Their coop has pine shaving in it and that getts scoped cleaned every 2 days. No smell in the coop so I think it is fairly clean.

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The welsummer in question.


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The coop I have.

I was able to treat the welsummer with the terramycin last night after they had gone in for the night and again this afternoon. What else should I do? What is it I am dealing with. I don't notice a bad smell, I don't see anything on their skin but then again I don't know what is normal since I am so new to this. I have not picked my chickens up very much so I don't know what feels and looks normal so I don't know when something is not right.

Here is a picture of some of the others. Do they look OK?
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Have you looked in her eye to see if there's anything (infection) there? Someone linked to a video on youtube on "eye worm" (I'm not saying that's what this is) and it was fascinating. The guy in the video showed how there was a white infection/worm/whatever and he squeezed it out. I'm not suggesting you go squeezing right now, just telling you what it was lol.
 
Thanks for your advice. What about the sneezing? Is it related? Should I keep up the terramycin and should I be given the whole flock something else? I have been dealing with this almost since I got them so I am getting really frustrated! I want to have healthy, happy chickens!
 
If I were in your situation:

I would keep her separate with her own food and water and newspaper/hay, etc. in a small dog crate. I would give her a nice warm bath before adding her to her new separate home. While she's in the bath I would open her eye to see if there is anything obstructing and irritating that area or if there's possibly a scratch. I would then try to flush her eye with warm water and give her some nice cooked rice with cayenne pepper, garlic and turmeric for the inflammation. (try this in her food for a couple days to see if it helps with the inflammation. Also liquid minerals in her water to help her heal faster. The poor girl. I have a welsummer too and I love them. She had the other hens plucking at her tail feathers too. Not any more because I separated her and gave her bath and sprayed diluted peroxide on her butt area. They are usually so spiritedly and active. This little girl must me in pain. I'm not sure about the topical treatment that you are using. May want to give it a break for a while and see if the eye inflammation goes down first on its own. She could have or another hen could have scratched her eye or pecked at it. Don't know. Keep a close eye (no pun intended here) on her, just on her, while she is separate.

That's what I would do in a nutshell. Sorry I haven't responded sooner I just joined a week ago and am now just getting around to reading some of the posts.

Angela (dsquawker)
 

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