- Aug 19, 2010
- 115
- 2
- 99
Sorry for the lengthy post
Chicken #1....About a month ago, hen #1 ended up with severe injuries to her head from bullying that got out of control....The entire top of her head had essentially been pecked off and her eye was swollen shut (from what I assumed was a pecking injury). I isolated her, started her on water soluble antibiotics (oxytet), treated her head injuries, and started using Vetericyn opthalmic ointment in the eye. Within a few days she was gaining weight and back to enjoying life-- now her head is almost completely healed, she has been laying an egg for me almost every day, and she seems like a perfectly content chicken. EXCEPT that her eye seems no better/no worse. It's never fully open more than a squint, her eyelids don't seem to match up, and what I can see of her eye is cloudy. No discharge, no sneezing, no diarrhea or anything like that.
Chicken #2... Noticed this hen getting pushed around on more than usual, especially by the rooster. Now she spends all day up on one of the roosts and doesn't come down. She had been looking a little slow lately going after treats, but wouldn't let me catch her to look at her eye. Now that she is on the roost all day, she lets me hand feed her and she appears to be blind in one eye. Upon closer inspection, the pupil is enlarged and eye is cloudy.
SO...now I am wondering, are there any contagious diseases that just affect the eye? Neither hen has had any symptoms AT ALL of anything other than eye problems. But now I wonder if Hen #1 perhaps started out with the eye problem, sensing her weakness, the other chickens turned on her...and now the same thing is happening to Hen #2??? Or if they are probably separate unrelated instances? Both hens are on the older side (in fact, I am quite pleasantly surprised at the number of eggs I am getting out of Hen #1 now that she is isolated!)
I will post a few pics in a separate post. Any thoughts would be welcome!
Chicken #1....About a month ago, hen #1 ended up with severe injuries to her head from bullying that got out of control....The entire top of her head had essentially been pecked off and her eye was swollen shut (from what I assumed was a pecking injury). I isolated her, started her on water soluble antibiotics (oxytet), treated her head injuries, and started using Vetericyn opthalmic ointment in the eye. Within a few days she was gaining weight and back to enjoying life-- now her head is almost completely healed, she has been laying an egg for me almost every day, and she seems like a perfectly content chicken. EXCEPT that her eye seems no better/no worse. It's never fully open more than a squint, her eyelids don't seem to match up, and what I can see of her eye is cloudy. No discharge, no sneezing, no diarrhea or anything like that.
Chicken #2... Noticed this hen getting pushed around on more than usual, especially by the rooster. Now she spends all day up on one of the roosts and doesn't come down. She had been looking a little slow lately going after treats, but wouldn't let me catch her to look at her eye. Now that she is on the roost all day, she lets me hand feed her and she appears to be blind in one eye. Upon closer inspection, the pupil is enlarged and eye is cloudy.
SO...now I am wondering, are there any contagious diseases that just affect the eye? Neither hen has had any symptoms AT ALL of anything other than eye problems. But now I wonder if Hen #1 perhaps started out with the eye problem, sensing her weakness, the other chickens turned on her...and now the same thing is happening to Hen #2??? Or if they are probably separate unrelated instances? Both hens are on the older side (in fact, I am quite pleasantly surprised at the number of eggs I am getting out of Hen #1 now that she is isolated!)
I will post a few pics in a separate post. Any thoughts would be welcome!
