Hen suddenly acts blind with puss and significant swelling in one eye.

Please help, one of my six backyard hens suddenly is acting very sick with what appears to be puss covering her right eye and maybe not able to see out of the left either. Also she appears to be bleeding out of her left ear. Could this be an infection? Tumor? I hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary the last few days until I couldn't find her and found her crouched on an egg against the fence. I've posted pictures below to help. Thank you in advance!

She has a serious respiratory infection at the very least and needs to be on antibiotics right now. Injectable Tylan is available at feed stores, or you can get on line and order Oxytet or something similar. Separate her from the others but try to keep her in a cage or pen where she can hear and/ or see them. She's not really blind, her eyes are just swollen shut, and that's common in chickens when ill. You can use plain human eyewash to rinse her eyes (available at drugstores, just the eyewash, not contact lens solution or anything like that) and then follow up with Triple antibiotic ointment (the kind withOUT painkiller!) gently dabbed on the eyes with a clean q tip. There are different places where you can get antibiotics but one is firststatevetsupply.com. Work on getting her eyes open, do this twice a day. Make sure she eats and drinks. You can moisten her food and mix a little oatmeal or scrambled egg or chopped fruit or tomato or yogurt in there to tempt her to eat, you need to STRONGLY encourage her to eat. Disinfect everything else you can in the pen of the others, their feeders and waterrers/ If any more develop symptoms it's best to treat the whole flock with antibiotics. When you are dealing with chicken illnesses, every second counts, as they can go downhill very quickly once they start showing symptoms.

Thank you for your quick response. Where do I inject the Tylan if I can get it from the feed store? How much should I give and where do I get the syringe and needle? Would it be better to order the Oxytet and wait for it to come in the mail?

My concern is that it may be a tumor because her left eye is In fact not swollen shut, it is somewhat normal looking and black but it appears she cannot see out of it, I tested it by making close sudden movements toward the eye with no reaction and she tries to drink but regularly misses the dish until I put the dish in front of her.

Does she have a bad smell about her head? She could have mycoplasma gallisepticum (also called CRD) or infectious coryza which can have a bad odor. For MG/CRD Tylan50 injectable given 1/2 cc/ml if under 5lb, or 1 cc/ml if over 5 lb. into the breast muscle daily for 5 days. Since 1 cc/ml is a lot, you can give 1/2 of that in the back of the neck just under the skin. Dosage for bantams is 1/4 cc/ml. If she has the bad odor, I would give her sulfadimethoxine (brand names Di-Methox or Albon) in her water. Here is some info on diseases and a link for Di-Methox:
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044
http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=30e078da-7b6a-11d5-a192-00b0d0204ae5

I will give her a good smell when I get home but I don't believe so. Thanks for the input!

This is an excerpt I found online about Tylan shots, but it gives pretty good instructions:


Tylan injectable can be given intramuscularlyin the breast muscle, sub cutaneously OR can be given orally. To inject it, draw the drug out of the bottle, using a 25 gauge needle (tylan is fairly thick and won't go through a needle much smaller than 25 gauge). Find the breast muscle on either side of the keel, below the crop but above the abdomen. Dab the spot you're going to inject with alcohol or iodine (preferably alcohol so it doesn't stain the feathers) and, with the syringe attached to the needle, poke the needle straight in to the muscle. Draw back on the plunger of the syringe to make sure you're not putting the drug in a vein, as this would be bad! Then, administer the dose, pulling the needle straight out when done and pressing a clean swab to the hole to make sure it seals properly. THere shouldn't be any (or very little) blood. To give subcutaneously, you can lift a tent of skin at the back of the neck and inject just under the skin (again drawing back on the plunger for blood- don't want blood!) OR you can inject tylan into the little pocket of skin where the wing meets the body- convenient little pocket there too. The drug can also be given orally, but DON"T use the same syringe to give orally as you do to draw the drug from the bottle or you will risk introducing bacteria to the bottle, which is supposed to contain sterile drug. Transfer the tylan to another syringe, then I like to draw up some babyfood (like blueberry puree or something sweet) to hide the taste as it tastes pretty gross. Give orally.

Please keep in mind that respiratory diseases never heal in chickens. The symptoms may clear up temporarily, but may return. And worse yet, they'll be carriers for life and will infect your other current chickens, and any other new chickens you get.

So are you suggesting that I cull the sick chicken to save the remainder of the flock from infection? I try my best to run an organic/antibiotic free backyard free range chicken community but I am willing to medicate if necessary to save a birds' life. However if as you say they will not be truly healed and I am risking infection to the remainder of my flock then I would likely pursue the greater good.

Also, I am not sure how my chicken could have become infected. I have had the same 6 chickens since birth (they are about 7 months old now) with no introduction of other birds, (aside from the sparrows, robins, etc... that are freely in my back yard), chicken keepers to my backyard, or other chicken operations in my neighborhood. Any ideas as to how they could have become infected? How certain are we that this is a respiratory infection given that i haven't taken any of the risks that commonly result in a respiratory infection. (Bringing in new birds etc...)

Thank you all again for your help on this!

That is a common belief about respiratory ailments and whether it's true or not I don't know, but I can tell you that chickens have very healthy immune systems as a general rule and it is worthwhile to try to save the sick one. We have had many sick chickens recover due to our efforts and we have a healthy flock overall, have had since 2005, and we have had some of the same birds for years.
I've never done injectable, but the feed store personnel can advise you. Or others on here. I believe it is in the breast muscle that you inject.