Help! Silkie Chicken's face, wattles and earlobes are very swollen

[Avent]

My Silkie Chicken's face, wattles and earlobes are very swollen. I have recently discovered she has diarrhea as well. I gave her a warm bath this evening and don't see any signs of mites or lice. Can anyone give me any advice or suggestions?

thanks,

I'm attaching some photos of her before and some of her after the swelling began. It's been about a week now.

 

[BeanHen]

Sorry to hear about your hen! I'm also sorry to say that I don't have much experience with swelling and such, though most facial swelling, eye infections, etc. is commonly from respiratory infections. Does her face have any bad smell to it? If it does, that would almost definitely mean a respiratory infection of some sort.

Here're some proposed treatments:
1. Try applying Terramycin or Neosporin (non-painkiller kind!) to the affected area; just to take the swelling down and see if that solves the problem (other than full-out treating for a respiratory infection because that may not be the cause).
2. You can give her a small dose of water-dissolved Duramycin-10 (feed-store antibiotic); I had a hen a few years ago who's eye swelled up like that, and I just put some of this into the flock's water and it cleared up within a few days.
3. Stronger antibiotics (like Tylan50; dosage: 0.5 cc/ml per day or you can split it up to 0.25cc/ml twice a day) may help to treat the swelling (which could possibly be a respiratory infection: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044)

Please don't try all three of these at the same time (at least not #2,3), as the high amount of antibiotics would be harmful to her.

I hope that helps somewhat, and that someone else with a bit more experience can also give their advice! The best of luck to you and your hen!

 

[spies04]

My rooster had something similiar and another Backyard friend recommend the Neosporin and it worked great! I would put it in the lower part of the eye once a day (usually at night) and let him blink a few times - took a few days to see some results but then it was so quick. He had no discomfort or any issues other than me getting close to his eye

. Good luck! I couldn't believe how well it worked for my litte man - I hope it helps!

 

[Eggcessive]

Have you noticed any eye or nasal drainage, or cough or sneezing? Has there been any signs of fowl pox on your chicken or any of the others? I would probably take her to your vet if possible, but if that isn't, then I would get some Tylan 50 injectable with a few syringes and 22 gauge needles at the feed store, cattle section. Give it to her ORALLY 1/4 ml twice a day for 5 days. A vet could prescribe something stronger such as enrofloxacin.

 

[mirandaleecon]

I have had a couple hens with some face swelling as well. The first one looked ridiculous and I had no idea what was going on with her but I gave her some Benadryl and it cleared up in a couple days.
The other few hens I've seen it in, it was usually localized to one side or a waddle and I believe that was from a bee sting. We have several hives and this year was very dry so the bees were trying to get protein from the chicken feed. I never gave them anything because the swelling was never that bad and it cleared up on it's own.

I don't know if what your hen has is allergy related, but I don't think a bit of Benadryl would hurt. I don't remember the dose but I'm sure you could find that on google...

 

[Avent]

Thank you all so much for the advice. Today I think I've finally concluded that it's respiratory. I can see her breathing a little bit heavier and a couple of times had her beak open. I purchased Doxy-Ty powder from our feed store (20.0 grams of Doxycycline and 5.0 grams of Tylosin) I haven't seen her drinking any of the water that I've treated for her so I was trying to drip some from a dropper to see if I could get a little in her that way. It's a slow process and I don't think it's going to be fast enough for her. She devours corn so tonight I thought about soaking corn in some treated water overnight and giving it to her first thing in the morning and maybe the corn will have enough meds to push her in the right direction.

Any thoughts?

Also, would you still recommend the neosporin if it's respiratory?

Thanks again for your comments......it's very comforting when you're going through this with a pet to have others that understand.

 

[Eggcessive]

Terramycin eye ointment or Vetericyn eye gel could help with infection in the eye. Neosporin works also. Can you mix some of the medicine in a concentrated amount, and give her a couple of drops two or three times daily, until she is drinking well? Try sprinkling some of the medicated water over a few bread crumbs mixed with raw egg or yogurt.

 

[Avent]

ok, thanks so much. I'm going to try the eye ointment. I rubbed some of the meds on a cucumber this evening and she ate quite a bit of that. Today is the first day I've had her on this med so I'm going to try some of the various methods of getting into her until she starts drinking on her own.