Swollen eye and face: Treatment Progress (ADVICE WELCOME!)

[deacons]

Went out to bring some fresh water to my girls at lunch time, and was greeted with this:







This is a 2-year old Golden Laced Wyandotte hen. We affectionately call her "Broody" because she goes a little nutty in the warmer weather. In fact, she had been broody all week until 2 days ago. I had her off in the broody breaker on her own, and got some help from Mother Nature when the weather cooled way down for 3 days. That seemed to snap her right out of it. Yesterday, she was acting totally normal (though I don't think she's laid yet since she came out of her broodiness).

So when I found her this way, I put in a call to my friendly neighborhood chicken vet (he's actually a bird/exotic pets vet but sees chickens). He was about to leave the office but after hearing her symptoms said he'd wait if we came in- so we did.

He flushed the eye, then did a cornea stain and found no evidence of trauma to the eye itself. He didn't find any objects in it. He checked out that pimply looking bump in the top corner but didn't think it was an abscess. He also explored up in her nostril for any pus or discharge, and really came out with nothing. There is no obvious peck or injury. The basic conclusion was that we don't really know what's causing it. He recommended treating two ways: eye drops and Baytril.

I brought her home, and while a bit stressed from the car ride, she was still active, eating, drinking, pooping, all normal chicken things. Vet said she didn't need to be isolated unless the others were picking on her (and obviously her eggs will be discarded due to the Baytril).

So when I went out to close up the coop about an hour ago, she was on the roost with the others, comfortably in her usual spot. However, her eye was still very much swollen, perhaps even a bit worse than earlier. Her whole head felt very warm (I felt a couple of others just to compare, and she was definitely a lot hotter than the others)- so I am worried about there being infection in there somewhere. For that reason, I decided I'd start her medical treatment tonight rather than waiting for a helper tomorrow morning.

I got pretty lucky with the drops- my aim was good enough that I got one in pretty quickly. These are the drops:


Next I tried the Baytril. I have never had to give a chicken oral antibiotics, so I struggled with her much longer than I wanted to just to get her to open her mouth. I was finally able to give her a bit of a bearhug and gently pull down on her wattles, getting her to open her mouth enough that I could do a couple of drops at a time, watch her swallow it, and repeat. She is supposed to get 0.7 mL twice a day for 7 days. Hopefully I'll get better at my technique, but I am very open to suggestions on making it less stressful for her!

The vet asked me to call with an update on Monday, but if any of you have suggestions over the weekend, I'm all ears.

I hate to question the vet, but the only thing I'm not sure about is not having her isolated. At this point, she's been with all the others all day, so maybe it's too late to worry about it if it's some sort of respiratory infection. Any advice on that?

 

[tonyschicks]

Deacons, as your aware I'm having similar issues with my roo. I've found that the best time to do this is at night. Doesn't seem so stressful for them. I've tried everything that has been suggested. Baytril, flushing eyes, treating for eye worms .. Just about everything. The one thing that I haven't tried is the vetrx on the roof of his mouth to try and remove any blockage in the duct. Im going to be trying this tomorrow and for a few days to see if I get any results. I will keep you posted. Good luck!

 

[microchick]

How often are you putting the eye drops in?

Any chance it could be an allergic reaction? Could she have been stung? Just tossing out some ideas.

It almost looks like she has developed an orbital cellulitis. I would not wait until Monday. The vet will want to know it is worsening and the buggies in her may not be sensitive to Baytril.

Good luck!

39 years in nursing 7 years as an optometric assistant

 

[deacons]

Day 2: No real change this morning. Eye/side of head is still swollen and warm. I also think her wattles look swollen. Not puffy swollen, but larger than they should be, and larger than other chickens.







All that said, while a little slower off the roost than usual, she did her normal morning routine with the rest of the flock. I don't think she can really see out of that side, since it's so swollen, so she moved slower than normal. But I saw her out eating with the rest of them. I did not see her drink. Her poop was runny this morning- maybe antiobiotics bothering her already?

Deacons, as your aware I'm having similar issues with my roo. I've found that the best time to do this is at night. Doesn't seem so stressful for them. I've tried everything that has been suggested. Baytril, flushing eyes, treating for eye worms .. Just about everything. The one thing that I haven't tried is the vetrx on the roof of his mouth to try and remove any blockage in the duct. Im going to be trying this tomorrow and for a few days to see if I get any results. I will keep you posted. Good luck!

Tony, will be following along on your thread and hope this new approach helps!

How often are you putting the eye drops in?

Any chance it could be an allergic reaction? Could she have been stung? Just tossing out some ideas.

It almost looks like she has developed an orbital cellulitis. I would not wait until Monday. The vet will want to know it is worsening and the buggies in her may not be sensitive to Baytril.

Good luck!

39 years in nursing 7 years as an optometric assistant

Micro- eye drops will be three times a day. Her eye is so swollen, I will be honest that I'm not totally sure if I got the drop in there this morning. I think my first two attempts missed, but I think the third one went in as she shook her head and really reacted. I will keep trying and hope my technique gets better.

I know about cellulitis in horses- not something I'm eager to mess around with. I hope we start to see some improvement and that's not what we're dealing with!

As far as stings, allergies, unfortunately I just don't know. I walked around their run last night to see if she could have gotten hurt on anything, and I did find a little piece of hardware cloth that had a sharp end pointing out right in the spot where they all like to sit on the ground during the day. Maybe it's as simple as that. Unfortunately, I just don't think I'll be able to find out.

So the poor thing is now in my "hospital crate," which is in the garage on the other side of the chicken's run. I feel terrible as I think being alone really stressed her out- I can still hear her making a fuss out there. I really don't know what to do in terms of isolating vs. allowing with the others. I thought keeping her isolated and quiet during the day would be good, but if it makes her more stressed out than I will rethink.


(The open beak is not panting or labored breathing, it's just her shouting her displeasure about being away from the others )

 

[deacons]

Day 3: Some cautious optimism this morning. Swelling is going down a little.

This is how she looked last night for the evening medication:






Poor thing was absolutely desperate for a dust bath when I let her out of the hospital crate. I felt so bad for her I didn't even mind she was in my garden doing it








But this morning, I can definitely see more of her eye. And I think her sight is better out of it, she was much more aware of me coming towards her on that side with the drops. I know I got a drop in this morning, so that was good. And the Baytril has been going fine- a bit of a slow process of gently pulling down on her wattle to open her mouth, and squirting some in.




She was hungry this morning and a lot feistier with her treatment- it always seems like a good sign when a sick animal starts fighting you a little when you're treating them.

After reading all the threads about using VetRx, I used some of that with her yesterday too. Swabbed it around her nostrils, and also wiped down her whole face with a warm washcloth with some VetRx on it (after that dustbath, her face was caked with dirt). There's some in her water today too.

I'm really confused about what this is. It seems most "swollen face" threads end up assuming it's Mycoplasma Gallisepticum (MG). According to the Merck Manual, these are the symptoms (with Broody's symptoms- or lack of symptoms- in parentheses after):
-Varying degrees of respiratory distress, with slight to marked rales, difficulty breathing, coughing, and/or sneezing. (NONE OF THESE.)
-Nasal discharge and conjunctivitis with frothiness about the eyes may be present. (NO- NO EYE BUBBLES OR RUNNY DISCHARGE)
-Swelling of the infraorbital sinuses is common (YES)
-In laying flocks, birds may fail to reach peak egg production, and the overall production rate is lower than normal. (MAYBE? SHE WAS BROODY LAST WEEK, AND HASN'T LAID FOR PROBABLY 7-8 DAYS AT THIS POINT. MAYBE A CONNECTION?)

Although the manual does say infection may be inapparent, so I guess you can't go by symptoms alone. Since she has no pus or runny discharge, doesn't seem there's any way the vet could culture it even if I took her back in. So I guess we keep watching and seeing how she does.

 

[microchick]

If you have trouble with the drops, don't worry about getting 'too much' in her eye. You can use them more often without problems.

That eye definitely looks better today. Maybe the warm compresses with VetRX is helping. As long as she tollerates it I'd continue with them.

You are doing a good job with Broody. Poor baby looks so miserable.

 

[Eggcessive]

This is an interesting thread. When we see the swelling around the eyes in pictures, it looks immediately like coryza or MG, but with no other symptoms that look like a respiratory infection, it is hard to know what to do. After following BYC for a number of years, I have seen a lot of threads where the cause was never know. Some have had possible tick, spider, or insect bites, while there can be tumors or lymphomas due to other diseases, and this is all very educating to know that it is not immediately assumed to be a respiratory disease. It's good that the cellulitis around the eye is being treated with Baytril, since it is good for many different organisms, and despite being banned for chickens, it is still used for pets. I don't know if she would accept you doing warm compresses to her eye, but it might help. I hope she does well, and you can find out what caused this.

 

[deacons]

If you have trouble with the drops, don't worry about getting 'too much' in her eye. You can use them more often without problems.

That eye definitely looks better today. Maybe the warm compresses with VetRX is helping. As long as she tollerates it I'd continue with them.

You are doing a good job with Broody. Poor baby looks so miserable.

Thanks! That's sort of the approach I've been taking with the drops- trying to get at least a couple that seem to go it. It's so hard to tell because she shakes her head around so much.

I have a horse that's extremely sensitive to dust and seems to have bad spring allergies every year. We've been through more courses of drops with her than I can count. It's a bit harder when a 900 lb animal that's a lot taller than you needs drops. At least with the chicken, I can wrap her in a towel and give her a bear hug to keep her relatively in place

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. Will continue to share updates this week.

 

[deacons]

Day 3: Swelling's going down!

I can definitely see a difference this morning:








BUT

Do you see swelling forming on the "good" side of her face? This is the left side, which has looked normal up until last night right before they went in for the night:


Also, just for the sake of documentation, the weirdest thing happened with her last night. They were all out in the yard about 30 minutes before "bedtime,"just foraging around as they usually do, and I happened to look at Broody and noticed her face was PALE- really pale, like beige colored. Both sides of her face.


But then, like a chameleon, her face went back to normal color. Then a couple of minutes later, dead pale again. And back to red. Really odd. By the time she got on the roost, she had her color back. I tried again with the hot VetRx compress on both sides of her face, and she didn't love it, but tolerated it. So who knows what that means, if anything.

This morning she really fought her medicine, but I got the Baytril in her and a couple of drops in the eye. I've been keeping her in the hospital crate in the mornings, mostly just for my own convenience so I can have easier access to her for the mid-day eye drops. It's also helping with the egg situation, so I don't have to discard any that are laid while she's separated. I'll probably keep this up this week if she can stand it. She doesn't like being separated from the others, which I understand, but they haven't had any problems with her coming back to the flock mid-day, so we'll go with it for now.

 

[microchick]

Are you treating the other eye, just on the possibility that whatever is bothering the one side has moved to the other side? Sometimes you never know what has caused something like this. It could be anything from an allergy to a bacterial infection to a viral infection.

I will be interested to hear what the vet has to say about it at this point but the original affected eye does look better.