baby with a swollen eye *UPDATE*

[Nyrial]

So I was doing my daily pasty butt check, and noticed one of my 5 day old chicks has a swollen eye. A bit red where it's worst, and then what appears to be white pus. Sorry it's not as clear as it should be, the little bugger moves fast and I have a hard time holding cameras steady. But you get the idea..

The other eye is clear, there are no other signs of anything else wrong, no sneezing, runny nose, or lethargy.

Anything I can do to help clean it out? Do you think injury or disease? If I can't get some teramyicin (sp?) tonight, is there something I can use for the night till I can?


Updated - no change this morning, just a little clear discharge. The Terramycin didn't seem to help much, but it didn't seem to hurt either. Last night, about an hour after after dose 1, I cleaned some green goo off of his closed eyelid, and he reopened his eye. This morning it was still open, swelling isn't down much, but no bigger either. Of course I'm not much of a judge at 4:30 am pre-caffeine. Hoping this isn't just wishful thinking.

 

[teach1rusl]

I wonder if he got pecked in the eye by another chick??? Mine worried me when they younger because they would peck at one another's faces sometimes and I always worried that someone would get an eye pecked...

Hopefully someone with more experience will post soon. I would try medicating it with salve...

 

[kyrose]

one of my older birds had a bad eye.i was told to pour saline on a cotton ball and wipe the eye with it then put non-pain neosporine on it.if you dont have saline im sure i saw a thread on here with a recipe to make it.hope your baby is ok...

 

[Nyrial]

So I picked up some terramycin ointment. Luckily the feed store across the trestle was still open. I'm going to try to flush the eye with warm water, and put that on it. Please

I have him penned separately in the brooder with a friend. Since he's not showing any other ill effects, I'm not going to isolate him, but I don't want anyone pecking at his eye.

More suggestions are always welcome, and thanks for the ones already offered.

 

[Nyrial]

bump (sorry)

So it's been another night. The eye doesn't look any worse, but it doesn't look much better either. There are still no other symptoms, the chick is eating/drinking normally, with normal looking droppings - I have him bedded on a hand towel so I can monitor them for any abnormal looking signs.

I've been flushing the eye morning and night with tepid water, but I'm going to get some saline on the way home from work today. Then I clean the outside of the lid with a q-tip, it seems to help him with being able to open it, and then treat with the terramycin ointment.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'd love to get a third treatment in each day, but work and class have prohibited that so far. Would 3 treatments be too many? Should I worry myself about something contagious, or should I wait till someone else exhibits the same symptom? I have 21 other chicks in with this baby, and they're (a large) hatchery birds as well, if that makes a difference. I would think that their biosecurity would be better than most?