What's going on with my roosters eye?

[UncleDougsChickens]

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.

I put some Terramycin on a Q tip and tried to work the eye around a bit after squeezing didn't work. I thought maybe that would loosen the scab if there was one and I could go from there. If you don't think that very outer layer that I tried to soften with the Terramycin is actually part of his eye then I can give it another go with a little more..persuasion.

 

[azygous]

I understand your reluctance. You're afraid of damaging the eye in case there's an eye left. This is why I suggested manipulating the part at the outer edge away from the center where the vision is. Accidentally scratching the sclera won't affect vision. But I believe there is so much pus, you won't come anywhere near the actual surface of the eye in just trying to lift off the outer skin of the pus.

Take this into consideration. If you were a lone hiker and a boulder fell on your arm trapping you, could you cut off your arm to save yourself? True story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston Sometimes we have to take a big risk to avoid an even worse outcome. In your case, your rooster might have an eye that still has vision under that layer of pus.

You are faced with a choice. 1. Do nothing and the roo will lose his sight. 2. Risk injuring the sclera to pull the pus off and possibly save his vision.

The decision is entirely yours. We do not judge others' decisions. You know what's best for you and your rooster.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I understand your reluctance. You're afraid of damaging the eye in case there's an eye left. This is why I suggested manipulating the part at the outer edge away from the center where the vision is. Accidentally scratching the sclera won't affect vision. But I believe there is so much pus, you won't come anywhere near the actual surface of the eye in just trying to lift off the outer skin of the pus.

Take this into consideration. If you were a lone hiker and a boulder fell on your arm trapping you, could you cut off your arm to save yourself? True story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston Sometimes we have to take a big risk to avoid an even worse outcome. In your case, your rooster might have an eye that still has vision under that layer of pus.

You are faced with a choice. 1. Do nothing and the roo will lose his sight. 2. Risk injuring the sclera to pull the pus off and possibly save his vision.

The decision is entirely yours. We do not judge others' decisions. You know what's best for you and your rooster.

I think another risk is having that infection spread and causing sepsis.

I have a Polish pullet who has a similar infection when she was a tiny little chick. Her eye swelled up and "clouded" over. I was afraid to mess with her eye, too.

I ended up taking her to a vet. The vet squeezed the heck out of her eye. I thought the thing was going to come out! But a pus plug did (so gross) and a bunch of fluid from an abscess behind the eye also came out. She then had both oral and topical antibiotics for 2 weeks. Her eye was saved, but she never opened her eye again.

Here she is now. She only uses the one good eye, and is completely normal and capable now. If the infection hadn't been removed, she would have died.

 

[azygous]

What a pose! What a success story!

 

[Aunt Angus]

What a pose! What a success story!

This girl and I have been through IT. She was shipped from a hatchery and arrived nearly dead. I kept her with me 24/7, even taking her to work with me (I kept her on my lap on a heating pad). I fed her crumbles and egg every 30 mins and gave her a drop or two of Nutridrench every couple of hours.

She now loves me and enjoys pets. Just can't touch her poof. She hates that.

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

I understand your reluctance. You're afraid of damaging the eye in case there's an eye left. This is why I suggested manipulating the part at the outer edge away from the center where the vision is. Accidentally scratching the sclera won't affect vision. But I believe there is so much pus, you won't come anywhere near the actual surface of the eye in just trying to lift off the outer skin of the pus.

Take this into consideration. If you were a lone hiker and a boulder fell on your arm trapping you, could you cut off your arm to save yourself? True story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aron_Ralston Sometimes we have to take a big risk to avoid an even worse outcome. In your case, your rooster might have an eye that still has vision under that layer of pus.

You are faced with a choice. 1. Do nothing and the roo will lose his sight. 2. Risk injuring the sclera to pull the pus off and possibly save his vision.

The decision is entirely yours. We do not judge others' decisions. You know what's best for you and your rooster.

I think you were right about their being a gap between the very outer layer and his actual eye and whatever being in between, but all that came out was blood when I tried to open it. Since I wasnt seemingly making any progress I stopped out of fear of hurting him any more.

 

[azygous]

You were brave to do what you could. From your account, that only blood came from trying to remove that substance, it may indicate that it's a tumor on his eye. Blood is not usually a component of pus on an eye. But it is a component of a tumor, which has its own blood supply, being tissue growth.

Between you and us, this is likely as far as we can take this. If a vet is an option and you have the means, that would be advisable at this point. But it's doubtful you would get any reasonable outcome if it is a tumor over the eye. It's likely already compromised any optical nerves, and removal would be costly while not doing anything to permit him to see.

A tumor that has been growing for a long time would also explain why antibiotics haven't made any difference over the time you've been battling this with your roo.

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

You were brave to do what you could. From your account, that only blood came from trying to remove that substance, it may indicate that it's a tumor on his eye. Blood is not usually a component of pus on an eye. But it is a component of a tumor, which has its own blood supply, being tissue growth.

Between you and us, this is likely as far as we can take this. If a vet is an option and you have the means, that would be advisable at this point. But it's doubtful you would get any reasonable outcome if it is a tumor over the eye. It's likely already compromised any optical nerves, and removal would be costly while not doing anything to permit him to see.

A tumor that has been growing for a long time would also explain why antibiotics haven't made any difference over the time you've been battling this with your roo.

I'm going to take him to a vet and see what they think. There's an avian one by me that seems like it has ok reviews and the worst they tell me is its best to leave it alone and he just goes on with his life with vision in one eye. I think hes gotten pretty used to it by now anyways.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I'm going to take him to a vet and see what they think. There's an avian one by me that seems like it has ok reviews and the worst they tell me is its best to leave it alone and he just goes on with his life with vision in one eye. I think hes gotten pretty used to it by now anyways.

Let us know what the vet says.

If he's lived with it all this time, he must've gotten used to it. And since it isn't really getting worse, he may just keep plugging along with it. Regardless, I hope you hear good news.

 

[UncleDougsChickens]

Let us know what the vet says.

If he's lived with it all this time, he must've gotten used to it. And since it isn't really getting worse, he may just keep plugging along with it. Regardless, I hope you hear good news.

Yea I will update you guys. At this point I've done so much googling trying to figure out what's wrong and realistically that's not going to get me anywhere, I just need a trained person to look at him. I just want him to live a happy life