Eye injury?

RedWolfTX

Chirping
6 Years
Dec 29, 2014
25
8
79
One of my hens (2 years old or so) has one eye shut. She's out and about, but mostly just sits.

We picked her off the roost last night (that's the only way you're going to get close to her), and took a look at her eye. It's tight shut, lightly crusty. Wearing nitrile, gloves, I gently pulled her lids back, and her eye is ivory. I don't see her cornea at all, so maybe I'm looking at the back of her eye, it's rotated the iris and cornea away.

She appears to be breathing ok, no wheezing. We parted her eye lids and rinsed well with Vetericyne eye wash. (TSC was out of the opththalmic gel).

I'm not sure if she's got an infection or if the queen hen gave her peck in the eye and hurt her (this girl tends to get pecked at bedtime by the boss girl).

Any thoughts?
 
Here's the pic

Is that something over her eye? I've seen pics/videos of Coryza where there was a yellow substance over the eye (nasty), but she doesn't appear to have any of the other symptoms. Three days ago her eye was just fine.

IMG_1043.jpeg
 
I would lean toward her being blind in the eye. Let's gets @Eggcessive and @coach723 to chime in.

Is the tissue surrounding her eye swollen and puffy?

In the photo - it may be reflection from the light, but when you tend to her eye again, see if that straight looking debris(?) is still in there. Red arrow pointing to it.
1596769983670.png
 
Neither my wife nor I (that's me hold Peach) recall seeing an foreign objects, but we'll check again. I find it odd that it appears her eye has a coating over it - you can see a dark spot that appears to be her iris/cornea and pupil. A few days ago it was the normal color.
 
No, I haven't. It's not gooey. I rubbed her eyelid over it, remained the same. I don't want to injure her eye, so I figured I'd ask here.

No bad smell around her
No wheezing, coughing, or sneezing
She's a little slow, isn't racing out in the morning with her 2 flock mates. But when I toss out the meal worms, she's right there with them pecking as fast as she can. No breathing issue - I lost a hen a few years back due to pneumonia, so I know what they sound like then.
 
I have only seen pictures of this before, but it seems to be a tightly covering of pus or white blood cells attached to the eye. I would try irrigating the eye with saline eyewash, and cleaning the eye with Qtips to try and remove it. Terramycin eye ointment or plain Neosporin can be applied twice a day. Ciprofloxacin eye drops from a vet would be better.
 
Thank you, @Eggcessive.

Twice a day would be tough - even blind in one eye, she's hard to catch. We've been grabber her at bed time when she's perched. :)
 
I agree with @Eggcessive . If you can manage once early in the morning before they get off the roosts, and then once in the evening after she's gone to roost, that would be close enough to every 12 hours for the meds. You can do flushing and trying to work it loose at the same time. I have a couple of birds that are really hard to catch too, I've got one now with bumblefoot and bandage changes happen after dark so I can get her off the roost.
 

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