Chick with crusty eye feathers

[KTwfall]

Hi everyone. Hopefully this is in the right category.

We recently received 15 chicks from Meyer Hatchery and for the most part things have been going well. However, one chick, a salmon faverolles, appears to have some wet-ish/crusty-looking down around one eye, and she doesn’t run around or move as much as the other chicks do. She eats and drinks, but sleeps a lot. Any ideas what this might be and what we should do? Sorry for poor quality photos. I can try to get better ones if necessary.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

Do you have terramycin?

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I had a salmon fav like this in my last batch. Never figured out what it was but I perked her up with egg yolk mixed with a little water and chick crumble to make a mash, nutridrench and terramycin on the eye twice a day after saline flush

 

[KTwfall]

I do not have any terramycin. Where would I get saline and terramycin? Tractor supply or farm and fleet? And how would I go about applying them, and for how long? And the nutridrench is something I add to the food, yes? Thanks!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I think any pet store or farm store will have terramycin. Saline you can make yourself (put saline recipe into the search bar here) or also at the pet store because it cab be used for dog's eyes. Or just contact lenses solution. I did it twice a day per advice I got here and when it looked better I switched to doing it just at night for a couple more days

 

[KTwfall]

Okay, I got a hold of some terramycin and applied some to the eye today after flushing it with water. It took some effort because a wood shaving got stuck in the eye goop and was pasted over the eye, but I managed to coax it off.

One more question; Is there any way I can make this process less traumatizing for the poor thing? It was very distressed and trembling and squirming terribly.

It must really not be feeling well because it spends most of its time standing around with its head drooping to the ground. It also has a bare spot now on its back where I believe other chicks are pecking it. It’s clearly at the bottom of the pecking order at the moment. Of course it HAD to be my favorite one, breaks my heart.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

You might need to separate it so it doesn't get picked on-maybe youbcan set up a divider so it can still see the other chicks but has its own food and water. But no, there isn't really a good way. It will get less traumatic as times goes on. I used a dropper to flush with saline. You dont want a wet chick. I had an old dollar store pregnancy test that comes with a tiny dropper so I used that

 

[RIredlady]

I’m currently having a similar issue with a Silkie chick from my latest hatch. Roughly 4 days old, and only one out of the bunch has goooy eyes. Everyone else is happy and busy as can be.