Chicken with eye injury and pus

[knudl]

My daughter's 9 month old silkie rooster has an infected eye that we noticed yesterday, most likely from a fight/injury. None of our other birds have any symptoms, and he doesn't have any other symptoms outside of the swollen eye.
He is eating and drinking normally, although we do have to guide him to the food. Poop is normal. Behaviour is normal. He's curious and exploring the house for the first time, and crowing and cooing happily.

We contacted our vet, but are in the middle of a major snow situation here, so phone consults and whatever is on hand is what I have to deal with.

So, when we discovered this during our chicken check-ups yesterday, his eye was completely shut and crusted over. We took him inside, gave him a bath and flushed his eye with saline and applied triple antibiotic ointment. Gave him a little bit of baby aspirin for pain then tried to remove the pus we discovered. My kids couldn't hold him still enough for me to remove the pus ball, so we put him in his cage for the night covered with a blanket.

This morning, the vet called and said that I need to get all the pus out, gently...keep up with compresses, saline, triple antibiotic ointment (as long as we don't plan to eat him) and aspirin at 5mg/kg of weight, so we set up for pus removal surgery...

So, we tried again, and I can squeeze the yellow ball out of his eye socket, but when I grab it and pull gently, it seems to be firmly attached to red tissue, and start bleeding a bit, and I'm really afraid I'm going to rip out his eye ball or hurt him more, so I stopped again.

He's still in his cage in the house and behaving normally, tid-bitting for the cats, lol, but I don't know how to get this pus ball out. Any suggestions?

My vet mentioned that she can’t tell in the photos whether he still has an intact eye in the socket. He definitely does and is using it primarily to side-eye me. I’ve added a couple more photos to show his eye better

 

[GodLovesU]

@Eggcessive

 

[Eggcessive]

It does sound difficult to get the pus out. It probably has to do with the injury to the conjunctiva. I would keep working on it, daily. Continue to flush with saline and apply the ointment twice a day. Wrapping the chicken in a towel can be a good way to work on them. It might be good if the vet tries to work on it, if you can’t do it. Here are some videos of removing pus from respiratory infections:

 

[knudl]

It does sound difficult to get the pus out. It probably has to do with the injury to the conjunctiva. I would keep working on it, daily. Continue to flush with saline and apply the ointment twice a day. Wrapping the chicken in a towel can be a good way to work on them. It might be good if the vet tries to work on it, if you can’t do it. Here are some videos of removing pus from respiratory infections:

Thank you! I spoke with the vet too and she said to try to cut away pieces of the infection with small scissors.

 

[knudl]

Ok, every time I put saline in his eye, or do compresses, he starts gasping and has rattly breathing like he’s drowning, so I just put the ointment and stop trying to work on the pus. He acts totally normal other than when we try to work on his eye Any idea what could be going on?

 

[LaFleche]

Ok, every time I put saline in his eye, or do compresses, he starts gasping and has rattly breathing like he’s drowning, so I just put the ointment and stop trying to work on the pus. He acts totally normal other than when we try to work on his eye Any idea what could be going on?

Do you accidently put pressure on his crop while treating his eye?

 

[knudl]

Hmmm maybe… he very much doesn’t like it and struggles… I’ll pay more attention to where my helpers are holding him

 

[Cajunmama33]

My daughter's 9 month old silkie rooster has an infected eye that we noticed yesterday, most likely from a fight/injury. None of our other birds have any symptoms, and he doesn't have any other symptoms outside of the swollen eye.
He is eating and drinking normally, although we do have to guide him to the food. Poop is normal. Behaviour is normal. He's curious and exploring the house for the first time, and crowing and cooing happily.

We contacted our vet, but are in the middle of a major snow situation here, so phone consults and whatever is on hand is what I have to deal with.

So, when we discovered this during our chicken check-ups yesterday, his eye was completely shut and crusted over. We took him inside, gave him a bath and flushed his eye with saline and applied triple antibiotic ointment. Gave him a little bit of baby aspirin for pain then tried to remove the pus we discovered. My kids couldn't hold him still enough for me to remove the pus ball, so we put him in his cage for the night covered with a blanket.

This morning, the vet called and said that I need to get all the pus out, gently...keep up with compresses, saline, triple antibiotic ointment (as long as we don't plan to eat him) and aspirin at 5mg/kg of weight, so we set up for pus removal surgery...

So, we tried again, and I can squeeze the yellow ball out of his eye socket, but when I grab it and pull gently, it seems to be firmly attached to red tissue, and start bleeding a bit, and I'm really afraid I'm going to rip out his eye ball or hurt him more, so I stopped again.

He's still in his cage in the house and behaving normally, tid-bitting for the cats, lol, but I don't know how to get this pus ball out. Any suggestions?

My vet mentioned that she can’t tell in the photos whether he still has an intact eye in the socket. He definitely does and is using it primarily to side-eye me. I’ve added a couple more photos to show his eye better

I literally just went through the same thing! Vet ruled out respitory but antibiotics, steroids, etc injections didn't work. The medicated eye drops didn't work. Finally *today* after 3 weeks, I sliced the thing open and squeezed. It was disgusting. I got the white pus ball out. She's still bleeding pretty bad so I flushes it and gave her antibiotics drops (the vet gave me) and will check on her in the AM. They are gonna move and flop around so just do it. It was gigantic. Idk what caused it but fingers crossed

Below was my girl before surgery

 

[knudl]

My vet came and did the surgery on his eye. He was VERY not cooperative, so she needed to sedate him. The surgery was successful, but he didn’t come out of sedation well and he didn’t make it. They swabbed and tested everything and can’t figure out what caused it besides maybe an injury and all the rest of the flock is good still.
I’m happy that your girl is doing well after surgery and that you were able to get it out

 

[Cajunmama33]

I'm sorry to hear

She's not out of the woods. She still bleeding and still appears to have a hard blood mass, but the puss itself is gone. IDK! It's so strange but not respitory. Hope she pulls through. She's been eating, drinking and laying