My hen has an infection in her eye!!! Help

[mychickensneaky]

My 20 week old girl once had an infection in her eye and she got rid of it by me putting salt water in her eye. Then she was fine just blind out of that one eye but she could eat and drink and do everything on her own fine. Now say 3 to 4 weeks down the road she has another infection in her same eye! And I have been putting warm salt water in her eye again. Is there anything else I could do for her? And why does she keep getting infections i her eye?

 

[cowcreekgeek]

My 20 week old girl once had an infection in her eye and she got rid of it by me putting salt water in her eye. Then she was fine just blind out of that one eye but she could eat and drink and do everything on her own fine. Now say 3 to 4 weeks down the road she has another infection in her same eye! And I have been putting warm salt water in her eye again. Is there anything else I could do for her? And why does she keep getting infections i her eye?

Most probably staph, and possibly a resistant form ... often, the symptoms improve, but the bacteria that caused 'em are still w/in the bird and it's environment.

First? Be sure 'n clean up really well, both before and after dealin' w/ your chickens, most esp. when you know there's an infection of any kind (and most esp. w/in their eyes, 'cause it can be spread to your own, as well as the rest of your flock )-;~

A drop or two of Johnson & Johnson's 'no more tears' baby shampoo can be put directly in the eyes, and lathered up. A dab about half the size of a pencil's eraser of the original version of Neosporin (w/o pain reliever, 'cause these can be toxic to chickens) can be placed w/in the eye. A better option would be Terramycin Opthalmic Ointment, which may be available locally, but for certain is on eBay right now (just bought four tubes last night, at what works out to be $3.50 each, shipping included).

Clean (actually, scrub) and disinfect all your equipment, and the roosts, nesting boxes, and other surfaces. Diluted bleach can be used on the equipment and roosts, and you can use vinegar in water to spray around everywhere (even if a bit of it gets on your chickens. Pick up some OdoBan, which is ten bucks a gallon, but makes 32 gallons of what is about the best product I've ever used for protecting animals/birds from illness/disease.

As unlucky as losin' an eye is, it could be far worse ... it coulda been the *other* eye.