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Help, her poor eye is bulging and swollen

tombraider23

In the Brooder
May 16, 2022
9
15
24
2 weeks ago we had an upper respitory infection with my flock. All but 2 were/are better.
Last week one of my cockerels started having trouble walking and a Pullet with an eye issue. Long story short we sent him (trouble walking) for a necropsy. His (without blood work) diagnoses:
• Marek’s disease (multiorgan involvement, neuro/visceral form)
 Nonsuppurative encephalitis
 Lymphocytic neuritis
 Splenic lymphoma
 Hepatic lymphoma
 Pulmonary lymphoma
 Pancreatic lymphoma

The girl with the eye issue is getting worse. The fleshy part inside of the eye is now taking up about 75% of her eye. It’s super swollen and is now reddening. No change of eye color. She drools sometimes and/or vomits when being picked up but not often. She has water diahhrea not watery. Water. It’s clear with small pieces of poop. She seems to be eating and drinking ok. She’s back to playing again since the respiratory infection.

I’ve washed out her eye, been using Tertryacin (sp?) with no improvement. I’ve talked to my personal vet and the vet who did the necropsy at Iowa State. My personal vet was unsure so she sent me to ISU. ISU does not believe it’s Mareks for her since her eye symptoms don’t line up. She said there is no way to know without a necropsy and since she’s the only one she wouldn’t recommend it. She was unable to help me with my next steps.

Is there anything else I can do to help her? Out of 77 chickens she is my absolute favorite but we can’t afford the surgery to remove her eye and my vet said depending on what caused it, it likely wouldn’t fix the issue. :(

Or is the humanist thing to do to put her to sleep?

The one outside is from 10 days ago. It wasn’t showing any progression for awhile until yesterday. The rest are from today.
 

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Can you tell if there's pus in the eye?
If so, then it will need to be pressed out.
I'd rinse the eye with saline and apply Terramycin in the eye a couple of times a day.

She's drooling and/or vomiting - is her crop emptying completely overnight?

Any lesions, canker, white or yellow pasty material inside the beak (back of throat or roof of beak)?

Any foul odors about the head, eye or on the breath?

You can try treating with Tylan50 to see if this helps with her symptoms. I see on the necropsy report that improvement was noted when given CTC, so...I'd try the Tylan for her and see if she will improve. The report also noted that some of the flock had bubbles in the eyes which is often seen with Mycoplasma. I don't see that there was testing for that, but let's just assume you are dealing with that too.

If her crop is not emptying overnight, then you'll want to address that too. Read this article in treating the crop but let me know what you find out. Photos of her poop may be helpful as well. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Do see that she's drinking and eating well. Poultry vitamins to give her a boost would be good. I'd use something like Poultry Cell - direct dose of that is 1cc per 3 pounds of weight. Mine do not like this in their water, so any that I need to give it to, I directly syringe it into them.

I know you've had a lot to deal with lately. Hopefully you'll be able to treat the symptoms. Do keep in mind that respiratory disease also makes birds carriers, so even if she recovers she may relapse again during times of stress or if she becomes unwell from something else. I think at this point, your whole flock has already been fully exposed to all the things that you've been dealt, so I don't really see a point of culling just to reduce spread so to speak. Now, if she's in a lot of misery, in a marked state of decline where you see no hope, etc., then of course, culling is the merciful step to take.
That said - you report she's eating/drinking and playing...imho, she's got fight and life in her - let's give it a go and see how she does.

To me it does look like she may have infection from respiratory illness - while this video is from an injury - the pus and method of removal is very similar across the board. A vet may use tools for pus removal, you can find those videos of removal on youtube as well.
Pus can become quite hard and be like a semisoft cheese and you'd be surprised how firmly you may need to push to get it out. You would repeat removal for a few days as necessary but do rinse the eye and keep ointment in the eye too.

I'm hopeful that the swelling is not due to some type of tumor, which crossed my mind since you had the necropsy performed, but time will tell on that one too.

 
Can you tell if there's pus in the eye?
If so, then it will need to be pressed out.
I'd rinse the eye with saline and apply Terramycin in the eye a couple of times a day.

She's drooling and/or vomiting - is her crop emptying completely overnight?

Any lesions, canker, white or yellow pasty material inside the beak (back of throat or roof of beak)?

Any foul odors about the head, eye or on the breath?

You can try treating with Tylan50 to see if this helps with her symptoms. I see on the necropsy report that improvement was noted when given CTC, so...I'd try the Tylan for her and see if she will improve. The report also noted that some of the flock had bubbles in the eyes which is often seen with Mycoplasma. I don't see that there was testing for that, but let's just assume you are dealing with that too.

If her crop is not emptying overnight, then you'll want to address that too. Read this article in treating the crop but let me know what you find out. Photos of her poop may be helpful as well. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Do see that she's drinking and eating well. Poultry vitamins to give her a boost would be good. I'd use something like Poultry Cell - direct dose of that is 1cc per 3 pounds of weight. Mine do not like this in their water, so any that I need to give it to, I directly syringe it into them.

I know you've had a lot to deal with lately. Hopefully you'll be able to treat the symptoms. Do keep in mind that respiratory disease also makes birds carriers, so even if she recovers she may relapse again during times of stress or if she becomes unwell from something else. I think at this point, your whole flock has already been fully exposed to all the things that you've been dealt, so I don't really see a point of culling just to reduce spread so to speak. Now, if she's in a lot of misery, in a marked state of decline where you see no hope, etc., then of course, culling is the merciful step to take.
That said - you report she's eating/drinking and playing...imho, she's got fight and life in her - let's give it a go and see how she does.

To me it does look like she may have infection from respiratory illness - while this video is from an injury - the pus and method of removal is very similar across the board. A vet may use tools for pus removal, you can find those videos of removal on youtube as well.
Pus can become quite hard and be like a semisoft cheese and you'd be surprised how firmly you may need to push to get it out. You would repeat removal for a few days as necessary but do rinse the eye and keep ointment in the eye too.

I'm hopeful that the swelling is not due to some type of tumor, which crossed my mind since you had the necropsy performed, but time will tell on that one too.

I do not see any pus. I’ve tried a warm compress once but didn’t seem to do anything. I’m not 100% sure on her crop I will check tonight. Nothing inside her mouth I just checked and no fowl odors.

Thank you so much!! I will give Tyson a try.
 

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