SWOLLEN EYE? my hen needs some help (PICS)

[Sunny Side Up]

Quote:
Hmmm, maybe your hen has something different. My hen's eye was completely closed, and when you parted the lids you couldn't see a dark eye, just white-ish or yellow-ish matter, or the pink third eyelid. I think that third eyelid is supposed to be more transparant, or slightly translucent, but it's now pink because it's inflamed. That's my uneducated guess.

It seems the third eyelid opens sideways, is usually retracted in the front unless it's needed, then it slides across the eye from front to back. Watch your chickens when they're eating something juicy like melon or fresh corn on the cob, they pull their third eyelids over their eyes to keep the juices from splashing in their eyes. It seems I had success when I tried squeezing the matter out towards the back of the eye. And it took a few days of trying, perhaps it has to grow to a certain size/consistency?

Right now my hen has very little swelling, but still a glob of matter in the back corner of the eye. I can see it and the pink third eyelid when I part her other eyelids. It won't move if I squeeze it, I'm trying to get it loose by flushing, and also applying the ointment.

I guess I did get a fair price on that, somehow I thought I saw it online for around $7 a tube, but I must have been mistaken.

I pray that all our afflicted chickens will get well SOON!

 

[The Squawk Box Fresh Eggs]

sunny_side_up,
the "bumps" have turned a "whitish" color but are still the same size. the third eyelid isnt swollen and it is translucent. there is some clear thin liquid coming out of one eye. she still dosent act sick and is still laying.
i can lift up the bumps to almost 1/4th inch, i wonder if i could take a small sewing needle and poke a hole on the underside of the bumps? (i have a certain way of paralizing a chicken for a short time so i can do delecate work...like sew back some skin that another chicken pulled off of one during a BIG fight, but thats another topic...)
there isnt any blood coming out of it. and i am still doing the treatment. how long does it take to heal?

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Sunny_Side_Up I feel so bad for your chick. When I first got the stuff out of my chick's eye it felt like there was still some of it in the corner toward the beak. I had decided to give it a break until the next day but luckily I had gotton it all. I checked my chick over again this evening and the eye still look's good. I hope it doesn't come back. You said it look's like a kernel of corn. Does it look that thick too? Squawk Box it sound's like your's is totally different. Maybe your chick need's to be on some internal med's. The ointment is good stuff. I've alway's had good luck with it on my 4 legged friend's. I hope ya'll get your chick's well soon. PEACE

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Squawk Box, I don't know what your hen could have or how best to treat it.

It sure sounds different from what these other hens have/had. Perhaps you could post some more pix, someone else may have a more knowledgable suggestion. Your previous picture shows the hen from the front. Is the whole eye area swollen? Or are these bumps under or around the eye?

Is there a vet in your area who treats birds or chickens, who might at least answer questions without charge over the phone? Or a wildlife/bird rescue center with a vet in attendance?

The fact that she's still acting well and laying is a good sign. Do you have her separated from the rest of the flock? I wish I knew what this could be, she might fight it off on her own.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Thanks for the well wishes, Muscadine, your note posted while I was writing my previous one. My afflicted bird is a White Rock pullet, about 10 months old. She's named Minerva Louise, after the hen in the children's storybook series, so she's a favorite of my kids. She hasn't been laying, and has gotten thin, light, & dirty. But still spunky, flapping & protesting her treatment.

Poor girl, she still has a spot of white matter on her eye, in the back corner, sometimes covered by the third eyelid. It seems flat & rubbery. It moves a bit when I irrigate it with the saline, but won't come loose. I'm going to continue to treat her with the Vet Rx, saline wash, and the terramycin ointment. And prayer! I'm adding powdered antibiotic & electrolytes to her water, and wetting her feed with that same treated water.

I'm glad your chick had such a great & complete recovery. I was really hopeful that Minerva Louise would be back to normal after I got so much of that gunk to come out of her eye, seems she is needing an extended treatment...

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Sunny Side it only make's sence to me that the chick's body should reject whatever this stuff is, but then that seem's to mean that it would be a foreign object. I'm sure what ever the stuff was it wasn't a foreigh object. Maybe a foreigh object caused an infection and it turned into that stuff. You said the swelling is down, does it make sence to you that maybe if the eye was still swollen than with the flushes and pushes it would come out. Have you ever had a splinter in your hand you couldn't get out, but once the splinter became infected and you give it a push it would shoot out? Well that's what this thing coming out of my bird's eye reminded me of. It actually scared me because I thought I was pushing something out that wasn't suppose to come out. Once it moved I took my pinky nail and ever so gently pulled out a little bit, but the peice was thick enough to do that. I feel so bad for you and your girl. Maybe it will come on out soon. Our day here started with one of my sexlink's down. I went out to my morning round's and as soon as I opened the door and took a step there she was lying on the ground sorta sideway's. Thought she was gone. Been working with her all day. Every 15 minute's I've went to her to get liquid's or food in her. She was real largathic and sitting with her eye's closed. By this afternoon she was standing, eating and drinking some on her own. We are not out of the wood's yet. It's a good thing I have paid attension to all the good people here and picked up supplies here and there that I might need to treat my bird's. I've got all kind's of good thing's going on for her. My old man's working tonight and he is going to call me every half hour to make sure I don't fall asleep so I can keep a good check on my girl. Good luck and keep us posted. PEACE

 

[Sunny Side Up]

My White Rock hen still has some yellowish matter in her eye that won't budge. It's not getting better, but not getting worse either. Every day I rinse it with warm saline solution & apply the Terramycin ointment. She's also getting powdered antibiotic in her drinking water, and I wet her feed with that same water to increase her Rx intake. I've ordered the 1 Drop 1 Eye 1 Time stuff from Poultryman & am waitingwaitingwaiting for it to arrive...

Poor girl, she's being confined to a separate wire cage all by herself. She has a little watery discharge from that eye that has made her feathers on that side sticky. She doesn't preen herself, so her feathers are all dull & dirty. When I've let her out on the grass she will find the blackest dirt to go take a dust bath, which I'm sure feels good to her, but makes her look even worse after. She's still eating & pooping well, but hasn't laid an egg for weeks. And she's got energy to fight me every day when I try to tend to her eye.

Last night was the monthly meeting of my Poultry Fanciers' Association, I brought her there for the other folks to see. No one there had any better ideas of what to do, they all said I was doing as much as could be done, and that sometimes It Just Takes Time for these things to heal. And that it could have been caused by getting pecked in the eye and that sometimes when chickens get an eye injury the infected matter clots into a rubbery mass. Sometimes it helps to gently squeeze it out, as long as you don't put pressure on the eye.

They advised keeping her separated until it finally heals, so she won't get pecked again. You know how chickens like to pick on others that are hurt. And that she might lose the sight in that eye at the end, but as long as she has one good eye she'll get along all right.

How are your chickens doing now?

 

[chilling in muscadine]

Sunny_side_ up, I wasn't buying the info you got from your poultry group. It just didn't sound right to me. You know I have had the same baby inside to do the same thing to her other eye. Well she went back outside on Sunday to her nursery coop to be back with her mate's and I couldn't beleive what I saw. She was getting pecked and it was right in the eye. O. K. so maybe your poultry group was right. I of course moved her with the next size down babies and all is good right now with her but she is back in the house due to go to a new nursery coop soon. Have you got the new med's yet and is it helping? I guess this terrible mystery is solved.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

I think there could be many reasons for a chicken to have an injured/infected eye, getting pecked would be just one of them. My laying hens aren't very aggressive towards each other, but it could have just taken one peck by one hen trying to push her way to the feeder, and caught this hen in the eye instead of on the neck or shoulder. And with their beaks in the dirt so often, a peck could introduce all sorts of germs into a wound.

Which is something to think about when we handle our chickens. I wear glasses so my eyes have some protection, but we should be careful when we don't, and also watch our children when they handle the chickens.

I had two roos who injured eyes in fights. Both of them refused treatment and healed up on their own. One of them roosts high up in a tree each night. I managed to catch him the first day of his injury, and tried to confine him in a cage so I could treat his eye. That night he fought his way out of the cage at sundown in order to roost up in his tree. Both he & the other roo healed all right, no swelling or infected matter, but they lost most of the sight in their hurt eyes. Their hurt eyes remained "glassy", flat with a semi-opaque covering over them. But they still got around as well as ever.

The weird thing is that almost all of the chickens I've had with injured/infected eyes have had it in only their LEFT eye.

My poor hen still has the swelling & infection in her eye. Poultryman still hasn't sent the package, going to contact them today to find out why. I squeezed another big clot of gunk out of her eye this morning, but there still is a spot of it that won't come out. I think she's going to lose that eye, it didn't look good in there. Not at all like the previous hen I treated, whose eye remained healthy & whole under the infected matter. Though I'm hoping for a miraculous healing, I'd be satisfied for the infection to dry up so this hen can go back to her flock, scratch/roll in the dirt & grass, and LAY EGGS.

Squawk Box, what's happening with your hen?

 

[chilling in muscadine]

I was hoping for a good ending here, it's been a long time now, way to long. Got my finger's crossed for your chicken, let us know. PEACE