Duck--any idea what's wrong with my boy's eyes?

[amdolphinlvr]

We have had him 3-ish years--he's a rescue do I'm not sure of his exact age. He has access to pools and can dunk his head/clear his nose out but he doesnt like to swim.....this happens every summer with his eyes. We put teramycin on it and that works for about 2 days at the time--then we have to do it again. This never happens in the cold months.....I sent a picture to vet and he said infection--but it's only ever summer so I don't see how it could be an infection?

 

[ruthhope]

Your boy has a watering eye that is staining the surrounding feathers. I cannot tell you what is causing it. The eye in the photo doesn't look inflamed (red color, swelling of the eye membranes) which I would expect with infection.

I have 2 now 9 week old jumbo pekin drakes rescued at about 2 weeks old. One has had brown stains 2/3rds the way round one eye and just a little by the other eye from soon after I received them. There are no vets who will see ducks in my county. I don't know much about duck eye anatomy, but I wondered if he had the duck equivalent of a blocked tear duct. Then as it happens, just the last 3 days, the staining has started to clear up. Blocked tear ducts in human babies mostly clear up on their own in time. I thought that validated my diagnosis, and wait and see approach.

I am wondering whether anything in your summer environment (pollen for example) is irritating your drake's eyes? That might cause increased watering that is leaking into the feathers round the eye.

No matter, as long as he has access to a deep tub of clean water to dunk his head and clear his nares, I would adopt a patiently wait and see approach and not stress him or yourself getting terramycin/ tetracycline eye ointment into his eyes. If he develops a purulent discharge, start bathing the eye with salt water and applying the antibiotic eye ointment. But if no purulent discharge, you know it goes away again when the weather turns cooler