EYE INFECTION - It's Not Always Mycoplasma - UPDATE w pics!

[MrsBrooke]

Awesome. Thank you, Eggcessive. If it doesn't start to clear up, I will take more drastic measures! I'll look into the oxytetracycline today when we go into town.

If I mix it in her water, and she doesn't drink all of it, is that still okay? Change the water and add dosage each day?

MrsB

 

[Eggcessive]

She should drink enough to get the correct dosage unless she stops drinking normally. You can also mix up smaller portions each day. Below is another antibiotic that you can use if you can't find the others:

Duramycin 10
(tetracycline HCl soluble powder)
For use in drinking water for prevention and treatment
of diseases susceptible to tetracycline hydrochloride.
• Contains broad spectrum anti-bacterial action of
tetracycline hydrochloride.
• Each packet contains 10 grams of tetracycline
hydrochloride activity
• Good solubility.
• Convenient package size.
• Multi species label: swine, calves, chickens, and
turkeys

To make 1
gallon:
400mg dose =
1/2 Tbsp (1 oz.)
per gallon of water
800mg dose =
1 Tbsp (2 oz.)
per gallon of water

 

[MrsBrooke]

Sorry that it is looking worse.  LA200 is an injectable form of oxytetracycline.  If she is eating and drinking, she can take the oral form which is powder added to water.  Also  Gallimycin for the water if available at your feed store is a good antibiotic to treat a wound infection or a respiratory infection which can affect the eye.  Tylan 50 injectable can also be given orally or as a shot for respiratory infection in the eye.  A vet if available could give you a more powerful antibiotic that treats either gram negative or gram positive bacteria.

The only thing TSC has is Neomycin oral liquid, Tylan 50 injectable, Duramycin injectable, and LA200 injectable.

I have no qualms giving an injection, but how much do I give her and where do I inject? She's 4 months old... I haven't weighed her yet.

♡♡♡

MrsB

 

[Eggcessive]

Tylan 50 can be given as an injection or orally once or twice a day for 3-5 days. Dosage is 1/4 ml for bantams, 1/2 ml for standard chickens under 5 lb, and 1 ml for over 5 lb. For an injection, it is given into the breast muscle 1/4 inch with a 22 gauge needle. If you give it orally, you will still need the needles and syringes. Neomycin is for gram negative intestinal infections, so I don't think that it would be good for you.

 

[MrsBrooke]

Thank you for your reply. I didn't get anything at the store, since I wasn't 100% sure what to do/what dosage to give, and TSC didn't have what I needed. There is another feed store in town that has tetracycline... It's not a powder, but the gentleman said it was water soluble.

Unfortunately, I am too new at this to be confident in tackling this by myself. Her eye looked awful Sunday and this morning. It's completely closed, runny, bleeding slightly, and swollen. I believe, at this point, it is fully infected... compounded by the fact that she keeps scratching at it (thus the blood - I saw her scratch, and it made it bleed) and rubbing her eye on her feathers.

Poor girl. Luckily, we have a livestock vet down the street that will see my chicken. They have an avian vet on staff! Imagine my relieved disbelief! They said since it deals with her eye that I need to bring her in as soon as possible. My boss laughed at me when I said I needed to leave a little early to take my chicken to the vet, but she happily gave me leave to take care of business. I love my job!

I will update this evening or tomorrow when we get a final diagnosis.

Thank you so, so much for your support and good information. I am in your debt!

MrsB

PS - I'll try to get a picture up, so you can see how this has progressed... If nothing else, for the sake of someone else who might have this problem in the future!

 

[Eggcessive]

Getting her to a vet is good--please update us on her condition.

 

[MrsBrooke]

We don't have a 100% diagnosis, but based on a visual inspection of her eye, the vet suspects it is mycoplasma. Her eye was so swollen and angry that the vet had to stop trying to pry her eye open for a swab, because we could see how uncomfortable she was. My vet wanted to give her medicated steroid eye drops to bring down the swelling - but we have to wait on the "FDA of produce animals" to see if they can be used topically on chickens. My only shred of hope is that the steroid eye drops don't cost me an arm and a leg... This is one of the pullets we got solely for egg production, so there's a cost-benefit analysis going on, unfortunately.

I am absolutely sick. I researched extensively, and I am 97% sure that's what this is.

To keep her alive means rendering her "useless" with antibiotics that humans cannot ingest. Any offspring will also have the disease.

I can only hope she has not spread this awful disease to my other chickens, although, from what I understand, that possibility is slim to none. Based on everything I have read, it is best to cull the whole flock, bleach everything for a few months, and start over with new chickens when your coop/range is disease-free.

She is still up and alert, eating and drinking in her dog crate in the garage. We will probably dispatch her sooner rather than later, if we aren't able to get the steroid eye drops. She is very uncomfortable. :/

I got this pullet and her hatchmates from a woman who purchased hatchery birds, started them, and sold them. She had a yard full of about 200 birds. It was quite an operation. We got six Black Australorp pullets to go with our four breeder birds, mainly for egg production. We quarantined them from the others for two weeks. I have no idea if her flock is infected, but it seems the stress of moving/weather change has caused this one pullet to flare up. There is no way to know which of the other birds are the silent carriers of this insidious disease.

I read in another thread a member several years ago wrote that he had no qualms with managing the disease and selling the birds, as long as they were symptom free. I can only hope that the woman I got these birds from doesn't follow that practice by treating infected birds with antibiotics and then selling them to unsuspecting newbies like me. If it is mycoplasma, I am facing untold costs - physical, mental, emotional, and TIME - to deal with this disease.

I will have to destroy my entire flock, repeatedly BLEACH the entire coop and run a few times a month for a few months, and then start over with NEW chickens and PRAY.

My heart goes out to any others dealing with this disease. I am devastated and have learned a hard lesson - potentially, at the expense of my entire flock.

MrsB

 

[casportpony]

Please have you vet draw blood and send it off to confirm mycoplasma.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

FYI, pretty sure the antibiotic that your vet is talking about is Baytril... FWIW, it was used for *many* years before the FDA ban. I know two people that suspected mycoplasma and were about to cull their flocks, but decided to have their sick birds tested first. Both tested negative. However, I have read many posts from people that have tested positive for mycoplasma, so it sure could be.

-Kathy

 

[ten chicks]

Link with more info on MG. Scroll down to CRD.

www.canadianpoultry.ca/cms_pdfs/Important%20Poultry%20Diseases%20060058%20-%20CPC%20website.pdf