Hen with bad eye - What is wrong with it?

SixHappyChicks

Chirping
Sep 11, 2020
21
108
99
Hello everyone,

Sorry about the long post, just thought that I should write everything down so that no one has questions later. :)
About a month ago, one of my hens (Peggy) got an irritated eye. Peggy is a four year old midnight maran hen. Her eye looked a little watery and maybe a little bit swollen. At first, I thought it could be allergies or maybe a piece of dirt stuck in her eye. When I gave a thorough look of her eye I didn't see anything stuck in it. So, I left it alone for about a week to see if it would get better on its own. Turns out that it didn't. That next week, I put some antibiotics into her eye for five days just in case it was some type of infection, but they did not make a difference. At that point, I decided to just let her be for a little while in case it would clear up on its own. I live in a very rural area with the closest avian vet being six hours away, so bringing her in wasn't really an option.
For the next few weeks her eye stayed the same, not getting any better or worse. She wasn't acting sick or like it hurt her, but she did seem annoyed with her eye. She kept scratching at it and wiping her eye it on her back feathers.
We were going on a vacation for a week, so I was hoping that it wouldn't get any worse while we were gone. When we got home yesterday, her eye was way worse! She won't hardly open it now, and it seems to hurt her a lot worse. I tried to open her eye, but she fights against me very hard. It almost looks like the skin in the corner of her eye is growing over her eyeball. You can hardly see her eye anymore, just a weird layer of skin. The outside of her eye looks really swollen, but the inside looks sunken. It is watery and her eyelid is swollen. Peggy is still acting healthy, pecking around and free ranging with her flock. But every once in a while she just sits down and acts like her eye is really bothering her.
I have been doing research trying to figure out what is wrong, but I can't find anything online that looks like this. Has anyone seen something like this before? Peggy is such a sweet girl and I don't want her to be in pain. I appreciate anyone who would help me out, because this is my last resort in helping Peggy. I tried to get the best pictures I could, but she really doesn't like me to touch her eye.
 

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Looks like it got pecked. Pick up some terramycin from your local farm store and apply it daily. You should see it start to heal up within a couple of days.
 
I agree, I would flush the eye with saline twice a day and apply Terramycin eye ointment. I have used plain Neosporin when Terramycin was not available. Remove any pus. Cannyou see the eyeball?
 
I agree, I would flush the eye with saline twice a day and apply Terramycin eye ointment. I have used plain Neosporin when Terramycin was not available. Remove any pus. Cannyou see the eyeball?
It is hard to get a good look into her eye, but you can only see the outer corner of her eyeball. It’s almost like the skin in the inner corner of her eye is growing over the eyeball.
 

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