chicken eye closed, skin looks swollen

[meandk0610]

can i squirt some betadine on the skin? her eye is squeezed shut and the skin looks kind of swollen. her other eye is fully open and clear. i found some screw ends that stick into the coop and will be cutting those off today in case she scratched her eye on one. i just don't know what i can use on her eye/eye area and don't want to lose her to an infection. i just bought her last monday and she's not even old enough to lay yet!

 

[summerthyme]

I wouldn't use betadine that close to the eye. If you have colloidal silver, it's really good for this type problem, and is perfectly safe in the eye. Otherwise, a dab of antibiotic salve (it would be preferable to use an ointment meant for eyes- there is a terramycin vet ophthalmic ointment available which we try to keep on hand, but if all you have is triple antibiotic salve or Neosporin, use it).

Summerthyme

 

[meandk0610]

i wiped her eye off yesterday with a wash rag then put neosporin on it since that was all i had. i also confined her to a dog crate with water, grass/weeds and scratch after seeing 2 other birds peck at her. i hope that it was just caused by a screw end sticking out; she's the easiest one for us to pet and it turns out that she was the one who had started laying pullet eggs. thanks, summerthyme!

 

[summerthyme]

Yeah, I forgot to mention that ANY sort of injury can make them fair game for the others. If you're going to have chickens, you should get either some "anti-pick" lotion or salve, or some BluKote. Both will treat minor injuries, and also taste terrible and cover blood, keeping the injured bird from being eaten alive by her "friends".

Hopefully it is just a scratched eyelid... if the eye itself is injured, there isn't a whole lot you can do about it. But then again, chickens don't need 20/20 vision to survive just fine..

Summerthyme