Hen with left eye closed, a little sticky, looking depressed

[caralouise1974]

Please help

I let my girls out this morning and noticed that Deirdre my 15 week old warren hybrid pullet was standing in the corner, huddled and depressed. She wasn't interested in the food or water I put out. This has happened overnight - she was fine and spritely, out free ranging with the other girls yesterday evening. In fact, we only got her on Tuesday, and yesterday was the first day she's really stopped being mercilessly chased by her coop-mate. When we free ranged her and her friend with the two older girls from the other coop I didn't see any signs of real bullying (just the usual little occasional pecks to the back and neck feathers).

Having fished her out I found she had her left eye closed and a lttle stringy clear mucus coming from it. No signs of an upper respiritory tract infection. She's just looking very glum and huddled, as if it really hurts and is bothering her a lot. She allowed me to cuddle her for ages before losing patience, which isn't normal either. I don't see a lot of poop inside the coop either (I replaced all the straw and removed the poop before they went to bed yesterday) , so maybe she didn't poop much overnight (or maybe I'm just being oversensitive).

We've brought her inside and put her in a dark room in a box full of straw until we can figure out what to do for the best. We'll wait half an hour or so to let her settle then perhaps give some food and water and se if she'll take it.

Could this be an injury to the eye, conjunctivitis, or something more sinister?

 

[caralouise1974]

Update: the left side of her face is now swollen, but we did just get her to eat some bread soaked in milk.

 

[Poohbear]

Get some VetRX from the feedstore and follow directions for "eye worms" on the pamplet in the box.

 

[caralouise1974]

Thanks everyone.

In the end, we took her back to the place we bought her from, and the owner there said it looked like mycoplasma, although unusually just affecting the eye. She's taken her back for some intensive injected antibiotics and some TLC, and given us some tylan soluble antibiotic for our remaining girls. She thinks Deirdre has a good chance of recovery as she was still clucking away and trying to look around her environment (with one eye), so we're hopeful she'll make a good recovery.

We've also taken some strong disinfectant from her and washed down the feeder/drinker and entire coop back at our place.

It seems likely that she was carrying the bacteria but the stress of the move to our place and being chased around and pecked for three days when she first arrived has caused her to get run down and develop the full blown infection. Poor thing.

As rather sad postscript to this story, we also took our dear little Audrey back today. We simply couldn't face bringing yet another bird in, and all the inherent stress of the accompanying pecking/bullying/more potential illness, so when we were offered a swap for little Deirdre, we turned it down. We can't therefore keep Audrey alone (our other two hens wouldn't accept her when we swapped her for our original feather-picking buff orpington!), as that's really cruel to her, so we've reluctantly given her back too. It seemed the kindest thing to do, and finally puts an end to the stress we've been under practically constantly since we got our girls a month ago.

So, we're now down to our buff orpington and our bluebelle, who get along like a house on fire. We'll miss the two warrens, as they were such friendly little birds, and so cheeky, but it's better that they are both going to be healthy and get new, more settled homes, and for us to start enjoying our hens, rather than stressing about them all the time!

 

[dave_Cash69]

best of luck