peacock with swollen eye-UPDATE

[casportpony]

Quote: I've only had peafowl since 2009, so way behind you there, lol, but my experiences have been like yours. FWIW, I catch my males by their trains when they have them and haven't pulled out any of their feathers that way, but I have accidentally stepped on *a* feather and pulled it out.
-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

I've only had peafowl since 2009, so way behind you there, lol, but my experiences have been like yours. FWIW, I catch my males by their trains when they have them and haven't pulled out any of their feathers that way, but I have accidentally stepped on *a* feather and pulled it out.
-Kathy

I've actually seen one Pea stand on another Peas train and pull out a feather or two. That is why I always grab as much of it as I can, and I don't know if someone thought I was yanking on it or what, but that is not the case, I just basically hold them in place while they wear themselves out a little. If you've done it yourself with no issues, then you know what I'm talking about.
As for the Cipro, I don't think anyone should judge it's efficacy based on one trial, anymore than they should judge chemotherapy to be useless simply because it doesn't shrink EVERY tumor EVERY time. Medical trials involve many patients for a reason. IMO

 

[casportpony]

Quote: Well said... I know you know this, but other people might not (no offense intended to anyone), but some bacteria are resistant to some drugs and of course antibiotics won't work if it's a fungal infection, in fact, they can make a fungal infection worse. Please note that I'm *not* saying that's what going on here!

One of my goals for 2014 is to set up our "home lab", lol, and learn how to use the scope, centrifuge, do fecals, grow cultures and do sensitivity testing. Luckily for me, my roommate is one of those "scary smart" types, so he'll be able to show me how. If nothing else it will be fun.

-Kathy

 

[chicknmania]

We caught Sapphire with a net a few years ago, when he was a young bird he wandered down to our neighbor's a mile away. Neighbor lured him into the garage eventually, and we caught him and covered his eyes with a cloth. He settled down immediately and we were able to handle him.

Phoenix is actually a little worse since I took him off the Cipro. The rest of the flock is doing fine with the Denagard, and no one has problems to speak of, so I'm reluctant
to increase the dose for the flock. There's no way for me to give Phoenix an increased dose of Denagard by himself, without confining him.

 

[chicknmania]

Has anyone tried those puffer things that I've read you can buy in the feed store, they puff antibiotic powder into the eye and that's what they're designed for.
I can't imagine that it wouldn't totally freak him out, but just curious. I just figure that it would be another way to get some antibiotic into him, as the eye
would absorb it.

 

[Yoda]

Interesting, in 19 years we have never had a males train pull out, unless he was already molting feathers from it. We also never had much bleeding when it did happen with our hens, as I said it is a natural defense against being caught by a predator, wouldn't make much sense for it to happen and then have the hens die of blood loss. I just caught an IB male on Sat. to put him into a different pen, got him by the train and held it for a min or two until he quit flapping so much and then picked him up, he didn't lose a single feather. Perhaps they require an all out panic reaction to lose the feathers and mine are so used to this, that it no longer engenders panic? I think it best that everybody figures out what works best for them, obviously everyone on here has different methods and different opinions, so each person should probably try several of them and decide what you are most comfortable with.

This was printed on a zoo's website:
It may seem that having such a long train and bright feathers would slow a peacock down and make him an easy target for predators like mongooses, jungle cats, stray dogs, leopards, and tigers—and this is absolutely true! However, if a predator grabs the train, the long feathers pull out easily, and the peacock can fly away.
So if you pull on the train it will come out. I catch my peacocks and peahens by the legs not the tails. One peacock almost got away from me and I grabbed it's train and the train was in my hand and the bird was 20 feet from me. Maybe it works for your birds but you really can't say the feathers do not come out. At the end of each feather you will see that they are full of blood so when they are pulled out they do bleed.

 

[chicknmania]

A raccoon grabbed one of our (chicken) hens last fall, and she was a bloody mess. WE thought she'd had severe injuries, but it turned out that all the blood was just from her broken feathers.
Or mostly. But when I grabbed Sweetpea she did not bleed at all, because she released those feathers. I think they bleed when the feather itself is broken, but not if you just pull it out by the roots.

 

[chicknmania]

Anyway, whatever works. It's interesting to see what all have experienced. In the meantime, getting back to the eye....he is on a rollercoaster...seems to be better this evening, so I'm gonna just
stick with the Denagard for awhile.

Thanks all for the input.

 

[DylansMom]

A raccoon grabbed one of our (chicken) hens last fall, and she was a bloody mess. WE thought she'd had severe injuries, but it turned out that all the blood was just from her broken feathers.
Or mostly. But when I grabbed Sweetpea she did not bleed at all, because she released those feathers. I think they bleed when the feather itself is broken, but not if you just pull it out by the roots.

Last year one of the big white males in my avatar broke a tail support feather about an inch out from his body. It happened over night so I never saw it until the next day and by then it had stopped bleeding on it's own. His entire train on the right side was covered with blood, so he did a lot of bleeding from that one broken feather. However I do know they can bleed if feathers are plucked, but that is totally different than the panic/escape mechanism that allows them to release like your hen did. My hens who did that were the same.... No bleeding. As I said before, everyone has different methods that work for them, so I wouldn't take anyone else's experiences as "Gospel", you need to experiment and find what works best for you. When my husband and I both go in a pen, the birds will actually try to hide behind me. I am more familiar to them so I guess I am the "lesser of two evils", this makes it pretty easy for me to get a good hold on that train, and perhaps as I said before they don't really panic because I'm not all that scary anymore( unless I'm having a bad hair day that is!).

 

[chicknmania]

Well, I think we are going to have to catch him. I hate to, cause he trusts me. I don't anticipate any problem grabbing him, especially since he's blind on one side, but
I think I will wait til I have help this weekend, it would probably be easier for everyone, including him, with two people. After my experience the other day, especially, lol.
The eye seems to improve during the day, maybe cause he's moving around and getting his circulation going. But in the mornings he's back to the swelling. Eye has
remained closed. I don't want to wait so long that we have to resort to cutting out the swelling. I don't think I can do that, period, and we're a long way from anyone who could,
as far as I know, besides a vet....

Is there a benefit to trying to switch to Baytril, since it is basically the same as Cipro?