Chicken with swollen eyelid, congested sounding breathing and sluggish, please help!

[ArtsyChicken25]

Hi all,
This is the first time posting here for me, but I’m very familiar with this forum as I have come here many times for advice or information on taking care of my chickens.

I have a chicken that has been unwell for about a month and a half now and any ideas as to what could be causing her sickness and how to treat it would be helpful! Since it’s been that long I have a lot of information to provide so I’ll try to keep it as concise as I can.

• She is a Dominique, one of two chickens left from our flock of 20. She is around 9 years old. She does have a tumor on her left thigh/side in front of her leg that appeared around a year and a half ago, and had gotten bigger since. She does walks with a limp. She stopped laying eggs a couple years ago. Both chickens spend most of the time in the chicken run during the day, they’ll free range occasionally but only when monitored since we have many hawks and predators around.
• Mid February is when I noticed she was unwell, symptoms included congested sounding breathing, swollen eyelid/skin around right eye with bubbles in corner of eye. Not as chipper as she usually is. Kept her separated in the chicken coop with a heat lamp, water and layer pellets.
• Did some research here and saw people suggesting Mycoplasma with the symptoms she had, so I ordered some Tylosin Powder from our vet and treated her water for a week and a half (I felt she needed it longer than the 3-5 days recommended). 1 tsp per gallon was the original dosage, but gave her 1/4 tsp per liter since I was treating only her and changed the water out every couple days.
• A little improvement, bubbles went away and breathing sounded a bit better, but still “congested” and had a swollen eyelid.
• Started noticing a few scabs around both chickens faces. I thought maybe what she had could be Fowl Pox instead and that’s why she didn’t respond as well to the antibiotics. Around the time I noticed she was sick we had issues with wild birds getting in the chicken run and noticed a mosquito around (we live in New Jersey and the winter has been wet with temps ranging from freezing to 60 degrees). I read that Fowl Pox needs to run its course so I kept her separated still and she continued to drink and eat. The scabs eventually went away after a couple weeks.
• I saw people recommending Terramycin eye ointment for her swollen eye so I’ve been treating her eye for about 3 weeks now, mostly once a day. There was some improvement after a week and half of treatment but recently it’s gone back to where it started. She can open it slightly but keeps it closed most of the time.
• We’ve also found mites on both chickens and I have been dusting them with a mix of wood ash and DE occasionally (also most recently some Permethrin powder) until we can completely treat the entire coop.
• Sometimes when she drinks water, if she bends her head down after to pick at food, some clear sticky liquid comes out of her mouth. It doesn’t have a smell and it usually only happens after she drinks. She does seem like she drinks a lot at once.

Most recently I’ve been keeping her in the coop with a screen door on and for a short time she’ll come out in the chicken run and peck some scratch grain with the other chicken before going to bed. She drinks water with a little ACV and a few drops of Poultry Cell vitamins. She does have an appetite, I’ve been giving her a bowl of wet layer pellets with cracked corn, sunflower seeds, milo seeds mixed in (though she mainly pick out the seed and corn). Occasionally she’ll get some chopped up scrambled eggs (which she loves) and veggies like lettuce, peppers, cucumber. She also will eat worms, grubs, and other small insects when I take her outside on warmer days to scratch around and dust bathe.

One other thing I’ve noticed is her feces have been green (mainly dark green, sometimes light) for a majority of the time she’s been ill, even on days that she doesn’t eat any grass or veggies. No signs of blood or anything in them. She’s thinner than the other chicken, and doesn’t eat as much as she should be. I check her crop every day and it’s full at night and empty in the morning. On week days I give her the mash with seeds in the morning, and when I get home from work I feel her crop and it’s usually empty, and she eats while I sit with her till she goes to bed. I’m trying to get her to eat her pellets because she doesn’t have a good diet now but haven’t been super lucky. She was eating some crushed up dry pellets a week ago. I tried mixing it with some yogurt but she doesn’t like anything that sticks to her beak, she’ll shake her head. I’ll include some pictures below.


Any advice on how to help/treat her would be super appreciated! I’m kind of at a loss, I love my chickens as they are my pets and I really want her to get better if possible. Thank you!

Photo 1: left side of face
Photo 2: right side of face that has swollen eyelid
Photo 3-4: some recent poop she made that is the occurring green color
Photo 5: a recent poop that looked more brown for once, I did feed her some red pepper the day prior though
Photo 6: her bending over after drinking some water, with the clear liquid coming out of her mouth
Photo 7: this is her this morning, hunched in and looking worse..

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

Update: just went out to check on her and noticed the eye that is swollen has some bubbles in it again. I put a little more Terramycin ointment in it. Should I try treating with Tylosin Powder again?

 

[Eggcessive]

She is getting up there. Have you added any new chickens or other poultry before she had symptoms of MG (mycoplasma?) The wild birds could have infected her. I would try to see if she has any pus that may be squeezed from around her eyelids. Has she been scratching at her eyes? The Terramycin is good to use after cleaning the eye with saline or eye wash twice a day. Hopefully the symptoms will get better. Do you think she got enough of the treated Tylosin water during her treatment? You could always try to redone her, and mix it more concentrated and give it orally. Or mix it twice as strong and give it for 5 days. MG is a chronic disease that can come back during periods of stress, and can be complicated by secondary diseases. Her poops look pretty good. I would try to get her eating mostly a balanced chicken feed, and severely limit the corn or other treats. Egg is fine in small bits. Some chickens love wet chicken feed mixed often in small amounts.

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

She is getting up there. Have you added any new chickens or other poultry before she had symptoms of MG (mycoplasma?) The wild birds could have infected her. I would try to see if she has any pus that may be squeezed from around her eyelids. Has she been scratching at her eyes? The Terramycin is good to use after cleaning the eye with saline or eye wash twice a day. Hopefully the symptoms will get better. Do you think she got enough of the treated Tylosin water during her treatment? You could always try to redone her, and mix it more concentrated and give it orally. Or mix it twice as strong and give it for 5 days. MG is a chronic disease that can come back during periods of stress, and can be complicated by secondary diseases. Her poops look pretty good. I would try to get her eating mostly a balanced chicken feed, and severely limit the corn or other treats. Egg is fine in small bits. Some chickens love wet chicken feed mixed often in small amounts.

Hello and thanks for your reply! No new chickens since we’ve had them. I vaguely remember years ago seeing one of my chickens have bubbles in one of their eyes, so it’s possible the flock has been exposed to it before. That’s why I thought maybe the cold weather might have brought it out. She has been scratching at that eye often. I’ll try to press around it lightly to see if anything comes out. How would you recommend washing out the eye with saline, with a dropper of some sort maybe? I also just went out to check on her and noticed the eye has bubbles in it again.
It’s possible she might have not been drinking enough of the Tylosin water, I was worried of giving her above the recommended dosage but I’ll try giving her a stronger dosage and see. I’ve also read that once they get used to the treats, they’ll hold out for them instead of eating their regular feed. Do you think I should try stopping the treats slowly in the wet mash? I was worried about her not eating much but she does need to eat her chicken feed.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would just put out the wet mash made fresh and see if she eats when hungry. A few bits of egg or tuna might get her started.
The saline can be dropped or use with a dropper. I find Bausch and Lomb Eye Relief Eye Wash for about $4-5, and it can be used out of the bottle to flush an eye.
Many flocks have been exposed to things like MG. Sometimes during stress it just can show up. During molts, in severe cold weather, or in an older chicken, it can be common if the flock is MG positive.

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

I would just put out the wet mash made fresh and see if she eats when hungry. A few bits of egg or tuna might get her started.
The saline can be dropped or use with a dropper. I find Bausch and Lomb Eye Relief Eye Wash for about $4-5, and it can be used out of the bottle to flush an eye.
Many flocks have been exposed to things like MG. Sometimes during stress it just can show up. During molts, in severe cold weather, or in an older chicken, it can be common if the flock is MG positive.

Ok tomorrow morning I’ll give her some Tylosin water and some scrambled egg along with the plain wet mash before I go to work. Would it be okay if I put a little ACV and drops of poultry vitamins in with the treated water or would it dilute it? I’ll keep updated with anything new!

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

I would just put out the wet mash made fresh and see if she eats when hungry. A few bits of egg or tuna might get her started.
The saline can be dropped or use with a dropper. I find Bausch and Lomb Eye Relief Eye Wash for about $4-5, and it can be used out of the bottle to flush an eye.
Many flocks have been exposed to things like MG. Sometimes during stress it just can show up. During molts, in severe cold weather, or in an older chicken, it can be common if the flock is MG positive.

Update: so yesterday I put some plain layer mash in a bowl in the morning and gave her a bit of egg. She ate the egg but when I got home in the afternoon it didn’t look like she ate much of the mash, and her poops didn’t look too good since she hadn’t eaten much. I gave her some more egg and washed her eye with eye wash and put the Terramycin ointment in it. I noticed that she will occasionally eat some of the smaller bits of dry layer pellets than the large ones, so I went to TSC and bought some Grower Crumble figuring she might like smaller pieces. She ate some of that from my hand yesterday before bed. This morning I put out plain Grower Crumbles and gave her some egg. When I got home her crop was empty and most of the crumbles were there. She just ate some out of my hand, and even some larger layer pellets too. She’s currently eating some mash with some bird seed in it, I was worried about her not eating much and her poop today looks like she hasn’t had much to eat.

Watching her eat I noticed she would sometimes have a hard time getting the crumbles past the front of her beak into her throat, they would stick there and she would try to move it with her tongue. I tried getting a good look in her mouth and noticed what looks like some kind of dark plaque in her mouth and some yellow canker sores…

Maybe this is why she’s not eating as much? Do you have any recommendations on how to treat the plaque? I treated a chicken before that had canker in her mouth with some iodine on a q-tip once a day on the sore till it went away, should I try this? Should I continue with the Tylosin Powder water?

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

@orelsi Hello I hope you don’t mind me tagging you here, but I was doing some research on this forum for answers on what could be going on with my chicken, and saw your post about your chicken that had wet fowl pox. The symptoms sound similar to my chicken’s. I was thinking of getting some metronidazole to try to treat her. Do you think this would be worth a try even if she may have wet fowl pox?

 

[Eggcessive]

It is hard to get many of the antibiotics lately due to government restrictions. I would keep a watch on the gray material increasing. How does the beak smell?

 

[ArtsyChicken25]

It is hard to get many of the antibiotics lately due to government restrictions. I would keep a watch on the gray material increasing. How does the beak smell?

There is no noticeable fowl smell or anything from her beak. She does seem like she’s having a little harder time eating food, the crumbles I’m giving her sometimes stick in her mouth and she has to work them down her throat. She does have that clear sticky saliva come out of her mouth after she drinks occasionally. Could the Tylosin powder cause this sticky saliva or canker as a side effect? I thought I read somewhere that antibiotics may cause these.