One of my hens has been suffering with a swollen, yucky eye for almost two weeks now. It doesn't seem to be getting worse or better. I first flushed the eye with Tylan once a day for about 4 days (after wiping eye with warm washcloth) - no improvement. Now I have Sulmet in the water - no improvement...she is eating and drinking and I do not notice any other symptoms, such as wheezing or funny odors. I have searched and read all the available topics on this board and the internet in general, but now I'm at a loss. The only thing I did not do was actually inject antibiotics into the breast...but if antibiotics were going to help, wouldn't I have seen at least some improvement from the application onto the eye? What should be my next step? Thanks for any advice! Emily
OK i have had this same problem - to no avail - i have done the same as you - AND i have injected into the breast - she holds her head funny a bit too - hopefully someone can help us cause i have researched till my head almost popped off - also drinking eating - laying etc
The meds need to be given either under the skin or down the throat, the Tylan on the eye helps some, but is not getting to the cause. If their is puss in the eye, and it looks swollen, more than likely their is puss caught under the third eye lid or in the corner of the eye. This puss ball must be massaged out in order for the eye to heal. Known that often the respitory illness that causes this is easy spread, often birds remain carriers and using good biosecurity before handling other birds is helpful.
Funky smell is often a symptom of coryza, if that halps narrow down what you might be dealing with? Given the antibiotics chosen sounds like you might have already suspected that. If chicken also has MG which often go hand in hand then recovery can be slowed.
There's probably an infection in the third eye lid--if yougently press on the bird's eye(with it closed) from the outer area towards the inner area, often a plug of white infection will come out--it gets trapped in the third eye lid.
If you have the nasty bad smell associated with corzya, order sulfadimethoxine from an online supplier, or your feed store, I get it from neeps.com it is cheap, and works on swollen eyes and sneezing in just a couple days! It is easily transmitted, but also easily eliminated. Do not mix the meds too strong, too much will kill. If there is no bad smell, then keep going with the tylan as others have suggested, or try a different water soluble antibiotic. Remember, the rule of thumb with antibiotics, if you dont see a marked improvement in a couple days time, it is the wrong med, try something else, but if it does get better, keep using the med, until all syptoms are gone, or the 'bug' builds a tolerance, and is harder to get rid of the 2nd time around! Good luck!
