19 week old RIR pullet: bubbly swollen eye. (PICS)

[jmc]

Cynthia, yes I thought about the poss of sinus infection........must check that out--somehow.

Biddieacres, thank you, but what keeps me from calling it IB or CRD is that this condition has been present for nearly seven weeks, and she has never had runny nose or rattled breathing. She is basically active and still quite spunky--though I admit she has slowed down a bit over the past week or two.

It seems a resp. disease would show in the other birds as well. No signs at all and it's been 7 weeks!! Nor has there been any rapid deterioration in Dottie's condition--knock on wood.....

 

[Nefertiti]

I'd try cucumber juice. Just sqeeze a couple of drops out of a slice into the eye.(Peel first, if store bought.)
It's quite soothing, and it may help to relieve some of the irratation and help keep it from getting infected. -Much gentler on eyes than diluted lemon juice.
If nothing else, the hen may just apprieciate it.

 

[Biddieacres]

If you are using the Terrymycin ointment that will make her eye feel better as well. It is soothing and melts into the eye with the warmth of the eye.

 

[PeeperKeeper]

If it is a sinus infection and it is impacted why not do what you'd do for yourself? Get some Simply Saline aerosol spray and force a squirt up her nose. It is only sterile water and a buffered saline compound. It will eventually soften nd loosen mucous and decrease mucous membrane swelling.

 

[sammi]

here is a link to treatment suggestion by Peter Brown of First State Vet Supply.
for flushing infected swollen eyes and sinuses:

http://happyhenhouse.proboards43.com/index.cgi?board=help&action=display&thread=6791

 

[dlhunicorn]

What type of bedding do you use? (incl when they were chicks)
You are saying in no uncertain terms that there seems to be no "respiratory" illness in your birds (so other resp symptoms outside the swollen area and the bubbles)... to double check that I have given you two links below with info (first has dry technical language you may not be able to follow but read through the lines >it will help you and there are illustrations and good descriptions despite the offputting medical terminology used) do take the effort to try and read through them as they will help you "rule out" a primary respiratory infection (as far as that can be done by a non-vet)
My first thought was either fungal (I have seen similar reports of your described problem with that) or something was inhaled (dust, small particles of hay or grass seed or even feed) and is now infected >both present similarly. If it is an inhaled particle which is now encapsulated within pus/abscess, inflammation etc. it can be tricky to remove (and if foreign matter it must indeed be removed >this includes abscess material as a bird cannot "reabsorb" it as mammals can >inflammation is a different matter entirely) ... Vitamin A deficiency often comp.icates matters and is often a part of the picture in such (see the last section of the first excerpt) and because of this I suggest you give this bird three drop of POLYVISOL Enfamil for a week in beak to address this eventuality.
Removal of the matter is usually acomplished with a flush and manual extraction and as I have not done so myself but only read of these cases I can only give you (written) info on that .... I will have to go through my info as there is so much I have not yet categorized and posted at my library. Here is what I have at the moment (I will post more as I find it but have a meeting this morning and so it will be a few hours till I get back to look) I have pmd you the little excerpt from the first link as in this case I do not believe we are allowed to excerpt so much from it (copyright) but I do want you to pull up the entire pdf and look through it:

http://www.avianmedicine.net/ampa/22.pdf
(small excerpt but refer to the pdf for more info )

http://www.redrobe.com/sharon/avian-respiratory-diseases.html

 

[jmc]

DLH, here's as much scoop as I can give right now.


I am quite busy myself at this time and must run off on business.

I cannot rule out respiratory disease at all. I am no vet or experienced poultry keeper. The whole flock has sneezed for almost FIVE months (i.e, about one week after i got them)--but no deaths and to this day, all are very active, good eaters and drinkers. However, Dottie has slowed down a bit--just a bit though..

Whole flock just got close to 2 wks of Oxine vapor treatment, from 45 min. to one hour each day. I notice no real change.

I am considering injecting all birds with Tylan.

Birds have shown--in rare instances mind you--clear nasal discharge in very small quantities--and rarely, remember. A bit of gaping once in a while, but no consistency--and since the Oxine, i've not seen a gape (yet)

One bird shook her head Mon. am and I got a little spray of liquid--and she hadn't just been at the water fountain. Almost any time I visit the birds, one or another of them sneezes. After Oxine therapy on two occasions, I heard one bird from about 60 feet away sneeze this loud, loud chirpy sneeze. I attribute this to the Oxine vapors, because that is the only time she has done this--ever.

I have read a good bit on resp. diseases and see some suggestive symptoms. But never rattled wheezing and birds never puffed up and listless, sitting there sneezing and with goop coming out the nose--NEVER. These birds --Dottie only partially excepted--are full of life--but still they sneeze, shake heads and sometimes spray me when they do so--and this AFTER the Oxine.

I actually think it might be CRD, hence the plans for the Tylan.

Bedding after day two of life was pine shavings mixed with sawdust ( and a very small amnt. of glue in the sawdust, I found out) I pullled them off that after a couple days, and switched to plain store bought kiln dried shavings. and that is what they're on even now. I wonder if there could have been bacteria in those first pine shavings which were donated; they came from two 55 gallon rusted drums from outside the donors wood shop.....

I gotta run. If anyone has read to this point, you are a very generous person!!

edited to say that: All flock has been on Blue Ribbon Vitamin, Electrolyte, and Probiotic Pack for over two weeks. They get it at a rate of 1 tsp per gallon daily. I don't think it 's a vitamin deficiency, anyway, unless the commercial Starter and Grower feed was itself deficient in Vit. A..........I'll look at the labels i saved.

 

[dlhunicorn]

John, how old were these birds when you got them and how old are they now? Ugg on the sawdust however shavings can also be quite dusty and if fine I know the stuff I use from the pet store is > I mist it a bit first to settle any dust when I change it >I use VirkonS but you could use your Oxine for this...Now I live in Holland and in general (especially this time of year) the humidity is fairly high ... it might not be where you are at.
I am sure you have heard how caged birds in the house have problems especially in winter when the humidity is low and chickens are the same... birds need (ideally) a good humidity level yet at the same time dry bedding and flooring as their immune system is compromised when the environment is too dry and dusty and even though humidity is often created when all the birds are together in their coop ( depending of course on the setup itself) you need to really try and figure out if this might be a factor in what is going on.
It is a good thing misting with oxine but it needs to be a very fine mist (ideally a humidifier/nebulizer) to reach the respiratory system and if it is very dry inside the coop an hour a day is not really going to achieve that desired effect. Do you have a hygrometer you can hang in the coop to measure the humidity? Whatever is causing the problem, good ventilation, dry environment and yet not dusty with a minimum humidity level of around 70% is what you should aim for.
I just got home myself and have not yet had time to search out additional info for you but I will get to that shortly.
BTW, you dont use a deep litter system do you?

 

[jmc]

Thanks, D

Birds were just hatched when I got them; maybe a couple days old. Came from a reputable hatchery in PA via local feed store. 5 RIRs 2 NHRs

The birds have sneezed wherever they have been, so it is not tied to any very localized environment.

The coop has had good ventilation, I did do the DL for a while, then stopped. my little coop is too little to do real DL method properly. I even divided the flock as I built another small coop. And the birds in the new location kept right on sneezing (once in a while and a bit of gaping) so again the environment of the first coop can't be the issue.

Birds are all on new litter (shallow method!!

) and still no change. Yet all remain spunky and one has laid every day since she started (at only 19wks of age) last Thursday--six days in a row for my little baby! Another laid and had partial prolapse, so i gotta deal with that now, also. she hasn't dared to lay again!

The birds were given Oxine by a cool mist humidifier, as I was advised by the poultry guy at Biocide Int'l., the makers of Oxine. I would put the birds in my tiny shower stall after the vaporizer had been filling the room with humidity/Oxine mist for at least 1/2 hour and even at times it was pre-running for an hour. It was definitely a good dose they got. In fact, one of the two groups I treated actually lost their voices somewhat for about 24 hours. One almost lost it completely. All came back to normal after I gave them a break.

I never vaporized them in the coop because I knew I couldn't get the humidity i sensed they would need. They were just 6 inches to 18 inches from the humidifier. And were very relaxed!!

The guy at Biocide suggested 15 minutes treatment. I gave them at least 40 min. to an hour each day. KJ Theodore mentioned that if an upper respiratory fungal infection has been present in a bird for a while before Oxine treatment, the bird's own system may have walled off the fungus, and thereby would render Oxine treatment ineffective, since it needs to actually TOUCH the fungus, since it is a disinfectant and not a drug. These birds got Oxine after 4 months of sneezing, so maybe their system has walled off the fungus. In this case, Theodore mentions, it is up the birds own defenses now, so to say.

So here we are. The birds are 20 weeks old today, 7 October 2008. A funny case, i dare say. BTW I have stopped giving Dottie the Terra. eye ointment, sort of planning on the heavy artillery of Tylan to intervene. I have all materials i need to do this. I am just lacking the guts to inject seven freaking out chickens for 3-5 days, and then tossing all the eggs for at least 30!! But i'm not gonna kill em all.

peace and gratitude to you.

 

[Biddieacres]

The Tylan injection can go in the back of the neck. I have details in a thread somewhere from a knowledgable person on this forum. I will look for it.

OK found it. The knowledgable person was actually dlhunicorn above. He helped me out with my Tylan question.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=86782