Puffy eyes and puss around eyes

[Hensome]

Hi BYC'ers

Can anyone help identify what is wrong with our one cockerel. He has eyes that are slightly swollen shut with some puss around the eyes. It may be from fighting as we ended up with three full grown cock birds in the flock, however one of the hens may now have it as well. All help appreciated.

 

[Eggcessive]

If it is warm, and you have mosquitoes around, it may be fowl pox, a virus. The scabs can be tan or brown to black, and the disease can last from 3-5 weeks. Iodine can be applied to the scabs away from eyes to help dry them up, and around eyes you can use plain Neosporin ointment. There is a more serious version called wet pox, which can cause yellow patches inside the throat, esophagus, and trachea that can be dangerous. Make sure that your affected chickens are eating enough.

 

[Sambi89]

Um do you have any poisonous spiders, or creepy crawlies of some sort in your area? It looks like a spider bite to me, but I'm no pro at all. I would get some antibiotics on it no matter what though. Hope he recovers sorry for your stress.

 

[Hensome]

Hi Eggcessive,

We are in a warm area and it is the time of year for mozzies. Fortunately they are Buff Orps so quite easy to handle I will check his throat for the wet pox.

To Sambi89, this is Africa so bound to be some nasty creepy crawlies around

. Thanks for your concern.

 

[Hensome]

I checked the chickens this evening and no soars in the throat etc, so it looks to be the fowl pox. I will get iodine tomorrow and try an organize some Neosporin ointment as we can not get from feed stores here, everything must be had from a vet or pharmacy (drug store) on a script.

Many thanks for the quick response.

 

[Hensome]

We now have Three hens and two Roos with this, the other roo and hen are fine with not a scab on them.

The others all have their eyes swollen shut but the scabs and soars do not seem to be getting worse. I have used Eggcessive's advice with the iodine, however the local Vets will not give me Neosporin ointment as they say it contains cortisone which is not to be used on birds!

I am also using warm water with Tee Tree oil just to try and get the eyes to open (It looks like when they sleep the eyes "stick shut" and also all arround the eyes are swollen).

Any further advice would be appreciated.

Thanks