Help ! Swollen eye.

[madisonn_02]

I have a ten week old bantam rooster, who is already smaller than he should be (he hatched out that way). Yesterday I woke up and went to water and feed and noticed his eye had swelled up HUGE! The eyelid won’t even shut all the way, I immediately flushed it out with saline and put terramycin in it. What could this be ? It seems to just keep getting worse.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

Is there any puss under the swollen eyelid?

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

@Wyorp Rock @azygous @Eggcessive @Aunt Angus

 

[Aunt Angus]

Is there any evidence of injury? That certainly looks infected. I'd likely do oral antibiotics in addition to the eye ointment.

I had a week old chick whose eye swelled up like that due to an abscess. I had to take her to a vet to have it drained. If there is pus visible in the eye, you'll need to get it out before it can heal.

 

[madisonn_02]

Is there any puss under the swollen eyelid?

There is no puss that we can tell

 

[madisonn_02]

Is there any evidence of injury? That certainly looks infected. I'd likely do oral antibiotics in addition to the eye ointment.

I had a week old chick whose eye swelled up like that due to an abscess. I had to take her to a vet to have it drained. If there is pus visible in the eye, you'll need to get it out before it can heal.

What kind of antibiotic would you recommend? It just seems like it’s swollen with no puss visible to the eye. He is in with one young pullet that is smaller than him right now . I haven’t seen anything happen unless he accidentally scratched his eye.

 

[azygous]

Even though it doesn't appear to you to be any pus in the eye, there is. It needs to be removed for the eye to heal. It matters little what the cause is, injury or bacterial infection, it needs to be removed. Below is a video showing you how.

Get some cotton balls, saline solution, and be prepared to be aggressive about getting the pus off the eye. The outer skin of the pus will be tough and may peel off. Or it may all come squirting out with pressure on the tissue surrounding the eye.

After the pus is all out, flush well and use terramycin in the eye twice a day.

 

[madisonn_02]

Even though it doesn't appear to you to be any pus in the eye, there is. It needs to be removed for the eye to heal. It matters little what the cause is, injury or bacterial infection, it needs to be removed. Below is a video showing you how.

Get some cotton balls, saline solution, and be prepared to be aggressive about getting the pus off the eye. The outer skin of the pus will be tough and may peel off. Or it may all come squirting out with pressure on the tissue surrounding the eye.

After the pus is all out, flush well and use terramycin in the eye twice a day.

This may be a silly question , sorry if it is. Since his eye is still very noticeably visible, there’s no way that the eye could possibly come out ? I’m okay with doing anything to help him, I just don’t want to do more damage.

 

[azygous]

You're not going to exert so much pressure that you'll pop the eye out. Start out gently and work up to enough pressure to coax the pus out. It won't take nearly as much pressure to push the pus out as it would take to pop her eye out.

 

[Aunt Angus]

That is exactly what our vet did - coax it out. The abscess actually burst and started draining during the process. She put my chick on clavimox. You could use Fish Mox.

@azygous - what dose? I'd search it ip, but my power is out, so internet is really really really slow.