Crusty, peeling skin around eye???

This is 'baby girl' - a 1.5 year old bantam that we adore. She is quite broody and I've been letting her sit on a nest with eggs recently. When I checked on her tonight her right eye was closed and the skin around both eyes as well as her comb looked crusty and dry. Any ideas about what this could be and best treatment?

Here is the before pic:


And this is after trying to clean her up. I couldn't really tell if what I was getting off was just something that had dried on her skin or if she was peeling.



Thanks in advance!!!

Can you take her to a vet?

Has she had any coughing, sneezing, mucous from the nostrils or discharge from the eyes?

It looks like her face around the eyes may be a bit swollen.

Check her over well for lice/mites to make sure they are not the cause. The crustiness could be from a skin/fungal infection like Favus - you can apply some anti-fungal cream to the skin to see if it improves.

A vet can do some testing on her skin to find out what's going on.

Thank you Wyorp Rock! I shared the pics with my vet and am waiting for a call back. No coughing, mucus, etc.. or mites that I could find. But yes - there is swelling but just on the right.... it looks like my other broody bantam is starting to get the peeling skin on her head too but no swelling?!?!?

Here is baby girl today:


And this is marmalade.

provost1801 said:

Thank you Wyorp Rock! I shared the pics with my vet and am waiting for a call back. No coughing, mucus, etc.. or mites that I could find. But yes - there is swelling but just on the right.... it looks like my other broody bantam is starting to get the peeling skin on her head too but no swelling?!?!?

Here is baby girl today:


And this is marmalade.

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If you don't mind, let us know what your vet thinks.

So the vet prescribed teremyacin and it seems to be working. It had gotten to where their ear holes were fully exposed but I'm finally seeing new feather growth!!

I mixed 1/4 tsp of this Teremyacin powder into a gallon of water and gave it to the two girls for 10 days as their only source of water. To do that, I had to keep them separated from the flock during the day. But at night (and some other times) they hung out with everyone else and no one else got it. You'll have to make a new batch daily. After researching online, I found out that oxytetracycline hydrochloride is the same thing as Teremyacin and my vet was able to order it for me. I think the cost was around $8-9 US per packet and I hardly used any of it.



Unfortunately, I noticed a roundworm in marmalade's poop yesterday so after reading a lot on this site about worming, we gave all 21 of them safeguard this evening. Everything had gone so smoothly until the eye issue a few weeks ago! Anyway, fingers crossed that this all works!!!

provost1801 said:

So the vet prescribed teremyacin and it seems to be working. It had gotten to where their ear holes were fully exposed but I'm finally seeing new feather growth!! Unfortunately, I noticed a roundworm in marmalade's poop yesterday so after reading a lot on this site about worming, we gave all 21 of them safeguard this evening. Everything had gone so smoothly until the eye issue a few weeks ago! Anyway, fingers crossed that this all works!!!

Click to expand...

I'm glad you were able to see the vet! New feather grow sounds good

I hope everything continues to go well.

The swelling is gone and her feathers are finally growing back - yeah!!

provost1801 said:

The swelling is gone and her feathers are finally growing back - yeah!!

Click to expand...

Big improvement! Thank you for the update - I hope she continues to do well.