Polish Rooster with Swollen, Watery Eye *UPDATE* New Symptoms!

[Sukiyaki]

The chicken is (we think) a male of about 10 weeks old. For the past few days he's had this nasty swollen eye and I'm not sure what to do or how to treat it.

(Piper the Gold Roo)

I'm very new to chickens, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

UPDATE: His feathers have gotten dirty and ratty looking lately while all of the other, healthy chickens are still clean and shiney. I guess this is a symptom...?

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

Do any of your other chickens show signs of dry or wet pox? I'm currently dealing with both dry and wet pox here, and this may be a wet pox symptom.

While it seems that each chicken seems to be showing different symptoms of the pox, some of mine have had wet eyes, and even keep their eye closed, some with swelling. All of them have recovered fully with treatment of FishZole (see below).

Dry Pox: 250mg of FishZole per gallon of water for 3-5 days (same with watery/bubbly eye)

Wet Pox: increase fishzole/water ratio to 250mg/quart; if showing yellow plaque on tongue, mouth or windpipe, ask vet for Azithromycin ASAP - depending on the size of bird, 1-1.5cc once daily for 10-15 days. I gave two doses on day 1 for a boost, 8 hours apart.

I just went through this with one of my polish hens. Lots more about my successful (YAY!) treatment here on Homesteading Today at: http://homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=277632

 

[Sukiyaki]

My other chickens are perfectly healthy so I don't think it's contagious. He doesn't seem to be getting too worse, but his feathers are all nasty. I hope I won't have to cull him.

 

[ruth]

I have a rooster that also had a closed, dripping watery eye. On inspection it seemed to be infected and at first I wasn't even sure the eye was still in the socket. The first night I washed it out with a sterile saline solution and put some eye ointment I got from my vet (Cyclosporine). The second night I flushed it again with saline and examined it again. I saw what looked like small flat whitish pieces of "what I don't know" in it's eye. I was able to get three of them out by gently massaging all around his eye while flushing it ouit. I can't really describe what they were and they weren't in there the night before. They were under the eye lids. I don't know if it was solidified infection but I don't think it was. It looked like slivers of rice of something. All the while I was examining him, both nights, he kept acting like he was choking and swallowing liquid. I opened his mouth and examined but didn't see anything in his throat. In any event, the third day, he opened his eye and seems fine today.

 

[verthandi]

Are the feathers dirty just around the head? Just curious as I am treating an eye problem and I have to clean just above his eye as the feathers get caked from the eye problem.

 

[Sukiyaki]

Verthandi -
All of his feathers are looking a little tattered and dirty--I don't understand it! Even his tail feathers are looking strange...

Ruth-
He can still see just a bit out of his eye, although there is now brown gunk all around it today. I'm working on trying to get my mother to take him up to the vet with me, maybe we can get some ointment!

 

[dlhunicorn]

the vet is a good idea.
You should really rinse the eye out with sterile saline as ruth did...this is a general measure. (you can make your own saline solution by boiling 1/4 tsp salt in a quart of wart for five minutes)
Also be sure to examine the inside of his mouth for any placques or such .
Separate him to a nice clean temp stable area while he is ill.