Hen with injured eye

[TheFugitivePen]

I've been very ill and haven't been able to visit as often as I like. However, my husband checks on them daily.

He noticed one hen acting very anxious around our young rooster (9 months old). He was previously aggressive towards a defiant hen, but seemed fine with the rest of the flock.

Today, my son noticed that her eye looked swollen. He caught her, and, indeed, her eye is swollen and closed up, the third eyelid closed over the eyeball. She also has scabs on her comb and earlobes.

We are going to treat the scabs with Vetercyn (sp?) spray, andnive read that I should get Terramycin to treat her eye. She will be isolated while she heals.
Is there anything else I should do?


Is it likely our rooster did this? We will be watching the flock behavior more closely. I wanted to cull him at the first sign of aggression, but he generally is calm around us and seems decent to the hens. We haven't caught him attacking her, only that she's very skittish near him, like the last hen he attacked.

Thank you!

 

[coach723]

In addition to what you have said, I would flush the eye out well with some sterile saline or eye wash (veterycin makes one), make sure there is no debris in there. Get a good look at the eye while you are doing that. Make sure there is no pus, which would need to be removed before the ointment would be effective. Hopefully it's minor and will heal up.
At nine months, he's still a cockerel, they can be very rude, pushy and obnoxious, so you may need to separate him if that's the case. He may get better with some maturing, or may not, they are all very individual. I don't keep boys that hurt the girls, there are too many nice ones out there.

 

[TheFugitivePen]

In addition to what you have said, I would flush the eye out well with some sterile saline or eye wash (veterycin makes one), make sure there is no debris in there. Get a good look at the eye while you are doing that. Make sure there is no pus, which would need to be removed before the ointment would be effective. Hopefully it's minor and will heal up.
At nine months, he's still a cockerel, they can be very rude, pushy and obnoxious, so you may need to separate him if that's the case. He may get better with some maturing, or may not, they are all very individual. I don't keep boys that hurt the girls, there are too many nice ones out there.

Thank you do much! We have saline handy, so we will definitely rinse the eye. We haven't noticed any pus, but I will take a very good look.

And, yes, if he's going to keep attacking and injuring hens that don't like him, I don't have patience for that. His job is supposed to be protecting them, not injuring them.