Wet Pox or just Dry? Pictures included...

[Fox]

My Wet Pox Silkie is still acting totally normal and wants back to the flock. I'm keeping her separated though since I know Wet Pox can be passed through the water. My Cochin is acting much better, but she does have bubbles coming out of the corner of her eye. I decided to give her the Liquamyacin LA-200 and gave her about 3/4 of a ml, injected. My Silkie that has the bad pox sores on her eye seems poorly. I decided to also give her the shot in case there is an underlying infection. She felt overly warm on her skin, but it could have been from the sunshine I guess. Her eye is really terrible... the pox sores wrap inside around the rim of her eye in place. When we got the eye open today, I couldn't even really see the eyeball, so I don't know the condition of that eye really. Her other sores on the other side are getting bigger and touch the corner of her eyes, but haven't closed it off. She eats a little, but not as much as she was. I am going to give the shots again on Tuesday. I read you should give this every third day. Although on one website the dosage was higher and said twice a day, plus another dose in the mouth. So I'm really confused by that one... http://www.xtremegamebirds.com/Dosage Chart.html I pretty much went by the dosage here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/631458/miracle-la-200-dosage-and-vetrx-for-crd-treatment I figured if it helped with that at that dose, it should help with a secondary respiratory problem. I think I read that is what bubbles in the eyes can mean. But it really is a guessing game. Just wanted to update you all.

 

[Fox]

Adding an update...

The outer sores on my White Silkie with the Wet Pox are really drying up.

Top one...


Side


Inside the mouth the bumpy sores are flatter now. I tried to remove them with the Q-tip, thinking that this might be like my Cochin's, but it was more like skin formed over where the sores once were and are healing. It would not move or budge, but at least it got swabbed with Vetericyn.




This chicken still acts normal as far as movements, but it is eating less now. I think it is unhappy being crated, but I'm not sure it's safe to go back to the flock yet? When are they no longer contagious?

My Cochin and other Silkie both got their next shot of Liquamyacin and I gave a dose down the throat too, as I read that can be helpful. My Cochin still has the bubbles in one eye, but otherwise is acting much more normal... no egg laying though.

 

[wekiva bird]

You have been a good mom to your chickens.

 

[Fox]

You have been a good mom to your chickens.

Thank you... I try my best to take good care of them!

 

[Fox]

I wanted to add some pictures of my Dry Pox patient... that had the terrible swollen eye. Today, for the first time, she has been able to keep that eye open a little bit. My Mom was able to get the sore off, the big one and it allowed her to open her eye a bit. She still looks fairly miserable, but has been eating some and drinking. I chopped up some partially cooked apple today and she ate that really well. She still lifts her feet funny like she still can't see properly where she is stepping, but at the same time, if she's setting, and I toss apple bits in front of her, she pecks them right up, so I assume she can see well enough to do that. Perhaps it's when she is moving things don't look quite right.

The orange you see on the feathers is iodine stains...

This is her bad side that you saw in the first post. This is her first day keeping it open at all! You can still see some of the areas where the sores were. They did bleed a little when we got them off, but there was no way she would be able to see without removing them, but we couldn't get enough of it off to get her eye open until today.


This is the "good" side. She only had a couple sores toward the back portion of her eye, but it allowed her eye to remain open, thankfully! They did get worse after the initial picture in the opening post. There I wasn't even sure they were sores... they looked like a pecked spot... but the sores developed and became worse. Now they are healing.


This is the Silkie on the Liquamyacin LA-200.

Every day we have cleaned her bad eye using warm water and also Vetericyn Wound Care Spray, used iodine on the sores, and Neosporin over the whole bad eye. On the "good" side we have sprayed the wound spray occasionally, but mostly we have been using just the iodine to help dry it up faster. She has gotten 2 shots of the antibiotic and one dose down the throat with a drip to the eye as well on one occasion. My red Cochin has gotten the same. I am debating whether to give her one more shot or not tomorrow. That's all of my update for now. I am mostly posting this in order to possibly help someone else in the future. I did not find many picture posts and pictures help me a lot to make sure I'm dealing with what I think I am dealing with. So I hope sometime this might help someone else.

 

[Chickroo]

Thanks so much for all of this information! It's very helpful.

One question: Are you sure that it's not harmful to use Vetericyn Wound Care Spray or Neosporin around the eye area? I have used both on my horse, but never near the eyes. Just curious what you might know about the safety on this.

Thanks!

 

[Fox]

Thanks so much for all of this information! It's very helpful.

One question: Are you sure that it's not harmful to use Vetericyn Wound Care Spray or Neosporin around the eye area? I have used both on my horse, but never near the eyes. Just curious what you might know about the safety on this.

Thanks!

I have had many Vetericyn products (got them for our cow and also used some on us). On some of the other products it said it was safe to use in the eye etc. So when this happened, I just grabbed the Wound Care Spray which was the one handy and sprayed it right into my Cochin's eye. After the second day of this, I read it was safe to use "around the eye". So at that point I did not try to spray it into the eye, but kept it on the outside. However, on my Cochin, her eye opened on the third or fouth day and has remained open ever since and she appears to see perfectly fine now. Now I have only gotten the Wound Care spray into my Silkie's eye once I think, and not on purpose, but have used it all around the eye. When shut, I have sprayed the whole eye, allowed that to sit, then wiped and worked at the sores. I had already read here that many put the Neosporin right into the eye area. It made sense to me since my Grandma has to use an antibiotic eye cream that is in the same type base as Neosporin. I have no studies or anything, but so far, both hens are improving when it comes to the eye issues. My Cochin is great except for some eye bubbles, but I hear that is respiratory, not eye damage. She had a few bubbles in her "good" eye too one day, but each day the bubbles seem less. I'm now using VetRx on my Cochin since I have run the course of antibiotic and am not sure what to do. Tomorrow would be the next treatment day, only I don't think they should be on antibiotics that long. So... I'm seeing if VetRx will help whatever is causing her to have the eye bubbles (she had pox, probably wet pox). The Wound Care says it is safe on healthy tissue and that is the only thing that made me a bit concerned with the eyes (eye was healthy, but pox around it made me unsure), but it was too late at that point. I had already sprayed. Still... from what I see, I don't think it hurt her eye at all and probably played a role in clearing up my Cochin so quickly. My Silkie was a bit worse off than my Cochin, but I did focus on the outer eye mostly with her and it has taken her longer to heal. Still, we are healing and I'm glad for the Vetericyn. It seems to help a lot. We use it on our cows too. When it says safe to use around the eyes, I assume that means if a bit gets in it won't hurt them... but that is my take on what they mean.

 

[Fox]

Updating the thread... Good news and bad news. First, the good news... My Silkie with the bad sores over her eyes has healed well and has gone back to be with the flock. She began eating very well and after a good inspection, I was happy to take her back to the flock of whites. Here are the pictures I took of her two days ago.

What was considering the "good" side
Before


After

I did see if that sore on her lobe would come off and it fell right off. I disposed of it and dabbed it with iodine to be sure nothing was left exposed there. She is now iodine and clay sand stained (for where I took her to dirt bathe on occasion - a sand pile) but at least she healed!

And what we called the "bad" side
Before


After


She was on Liquamycin LA-200 (3 shots) and I used Vetericyn Wound Spray and Neosporin all around and even in the eye, as well as iodine on the sores. She never showed any signs in the mouth of wet pox.

Now on to the bad news...

I had a busy weekend with church related obligations and I did not check the inside of the wet pox chicken since she appeared to be healing so well. On the outside the sores appeared to continue to dry and flatten, so I did not open up her mouth. She was eating and acting about the same. When I did check a couple days ago, to my dismay I saw that where the sores were on her beak, new lesions had formed. It was horrifying! Here she is healing... last thing I saw....


And then this!

If I had any doubt of wet, it was instantly gone. I felt sick for not continuing to spray her mouth with the Vetericyn. Also, because she was alone, I did not add Oxine to her water, and I think I should have. I now have Oxine in her water and I am spraying her mouth with the Vetericyn. I also scraped out the lesions with a Q-tip dipped in iodine and I removed the sore on the side of her beak. It did bleed a little, but I treated that with iodine and it did stop bleeding. I honestly feel those sores are full of the virus and they caused those lesions. I should have tried to remove them sooner, but thought if they dried and fell off that would be better. I no longer believe that. I tried to remove the one on the top of the beak, but did not have good success. I will have to work on it more bit by bit. Today she has a bit more lesion which I again removed with the iodine dipped Q-tip. I also swabbed all sores with iodine and sprayed her mouth two different times with the Veterycin. I also took her out and let her dirt bathe in the sand pile. She actually liked the dirt pile over the sand, so I let her do her thing. She had fun pecking and scratching and bathing in it. I thought it was good for her.

This was very disappointing since when I went to check her, I was thinking she might be able to go back to the flock too... but no! She is no where close. She was worse instead of better, so she was obviously not as far along in this as I thought, even with the drying sores. So if I had to it to do over, I'd check the mouth everyday, even if I thought she was well. I would remove those sores as soon as I could get them off, and I'd spray each day with Vetericyn and keep Oxine in the water. I hope that my mistakes will at least help someone else dealing with this not go through the same thing. So far, this chicken is not on antibiotic shots. She did have some slight mucous in her mouth and if that gets worse, I'll probably put her on it as a precaution against secondary things.

 

[wekiva bird]

Fox, so sorry to hear that. Hope it will be better soon.

 

[Jackiesranch]

Can a hen have dry Pox and wet pox at the same time?? I had a hen that had black Dots on her comb I am ASSUMING it was dry pox but then she was having issuing eating down the road, I have sence lost her... it was 8 weeks of on again off again health issues