What's going on with my roosters eye?

[UncleDougsChickens]

What do you think is going on with his eye? Besides the fact that its huge and he's likely blind in that one eye. He's about 5-6 months old now, and has had chronic eye infections since he was a baby. He is a house rooster now and so he stays inside with me most of the time, which really helped heal his eye and believe me it was unfortunately worse than it is now. The first time he got an eye infection, it lasted for a few days and went down. This happened several times but eventually it got out of control. His eye wouldn't respond to any antibiotic, cream, you name it. I tried everything I could to fix it. At this point I think its pretty clear that he has minimal or no vision in that eye, but I thought it would eventually go down in size, or the eye would die and fall out. He was about 1/3rd the size of his sisters for the first 2-3 months but slowly caught up, so maybe his genetics are not so great and caused the chronic infection?

I think we both adjusted to his current life, him having reduced vision and me keeping him inside with me, but I'm just curious what the problem is and if there's a way that I could shrink it, short of having it surgically removed.

EDIT: I found a thread that shows what his eye looked like for most of his life before it got cloudy in these pictures. It looked like this no matter what I did to it, then slowly became cloudy but never shrunk.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/bulging-eye-on-newly-hatched-chick.978786/

 

[azygous]

His eye may still be okay if you can pull that pus out of his eye. By now, expect a dry skin on the pus. Carefully pick that off then use a saline saturated cotton ball to clean the rest out. To get any pus under the tissue surrounding the eye, put gentle pressure around the edge of the eye, squeezing all of the pus out.

This is preventing any ocular antibiotic from working. It's best to flush the eye daily with saline and use Terramycin antibiotic eye ointment twice a day. Remove pus each day if it comes back.

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

His eye may still be okay if you can pull that pus out of his eye. By now, expect a dry skin on the pus. Carefully pick that off then use a saline saturated cotton ball to clean the rest out. To get any pus under the tissue surrounding the eye, put gentle pressure around the edge of the eye, squeezing all of the pus out.

This is preventing any ocular antibiotic from working. It's best to flush the eye daily with saline and use Terramycin antibiotic eye ointment twice a day. Remove pus each day if it comes back.

Just so I'm clear here, you're saying what we're looking at in the picture is his eye and behind it is a bunch of nasty crap pushing it outward. If I squeeze it, in theory the nasty crap will come out.

Devils advocate so I know the risks involved, what if I squeeze it and nothing comes out? Is there a way for me to test the theory before I start?

Do you recommend any good videos on this process? I believe I know what you're talking about and have seen videos but I just want to be sure.

 

[Eggcessive]

Did you chick’s eye look exactly like the one in the thread you posted at hatch? That is a birth defect, and most of the chicks whose eyes look like that at hatch, lose the eyes or they die. If the chicken’s eye had a chronic infection, it could be scarred or a scab. If it is scabbed over with pus or white blood cells, it may be blind already. There does seem to be a lot of swelling around the eye like there could be pus in the eye socket or sinus. That does need to come out. Have you treated the eye with Terramycin or other antibiotics before?

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

Did you chick’s eye look exactly like the one in the thread you posted at hatch? That is a birth defect, and most of the chicks whose eyes look like that at hatch, lose the eyes or they die. If the chicken’s eye had a chronic infection, it could be scarred or a scab. If it is scabbed over with pus or white blood cells, it may be blind already. There does seem to be a lot of swelling around the eye like there could be pus in the eye socket or sinus. That does need to come out. Have you treated the eye with Terramycin or other antibiotics before?

Did you chick’s eye look exactly like the one in the thread you posted at hatch?
He definitely had a normal eye when he was a baby so this was a chronic thing, I guess that rules out birth defect

Have you treated the eye with Terramycin or other antibiotics before?
Yes I have terramycin, I used to clean his eye out with it every night then put an antibiotic cream on it. I wasn't sure if that was very helpful because every day his eye looked the same, pus on the eye/still swollen. Could have been him just falling over all the time and getting crap in it again and it sticking to his eye because of the antibiotic cream

 

[azygous]

You aren't the first to be hesitant about fooling with the eye. So, yes, here's what you can do to prove this is pus. Take tweezers, unless you have slender very nimble fingers, and grasp just the very surface of that substance at the outer edge where you wouldn't expect to contact the actual iris and pupil. Then lift it away from the eye. If you see the actual eye after doing this, you will then be more confident about removing the rest of the pus.

 

[Eggcessive]

Usually if there is pus in the eye socket or sinus, it has to be removed for antibiotics to work. Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) and coryza are 2 respiratory diseases that can cause a swollen eyelid and sinus infection. Also a peck wound or something getting into the eye to cause infection could be the problem. Many use an oral antibiotic such as Tylan or tylosin to treat a respiratory disease. If it is an infection from a foreign body or peck wound, then other antibiotics may be better. Enrofloxacin is one that might treat many different bacteria. We are not vets here, and if you could see one that would be great.

 

[azygous]

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

You aren't the first to be hesitant about fooling with the eye. So, yes, here's what you can do to prove this is pus. Take tweezers, unless you have slender very nimble fingers, and grasp just the very surface of that substance at the outer edge where you wouldn't expect to contact the actual iris and pupil. Then lift it away from the eye. If you see the actual eye after doing this, you will then be more confident about removing the rest of the pus.

So..I tried to squeeze it out like the video but nothing came out, I have these magnifying glasses like they use at the dental office so I could see real close to it and it looks like one giant unit, as in, there was nothing to squeeze out. His eye (as you see in picture 1) was like the consistency of the inside of a grape, but more firm. Maybe I just need to squeeze harder but after nothing happened I decided to stop and step back.

 

[azygous]

Did you try lifting the "skin" off? It's this dry outer"skin" layer that gives the impression that it's a contiguous solid mass. Once you pull off a bit of that dry layer, then the rest should be more pliable. Chicken pus is like cheese, not runny at all.