Please help. Swollen earlobe on hen.

[trottreacle]

Woke up this morning to feed my girls and my wee lavender pekin has a swollen earlobe.

It is warm to the touch and I have spent the entire day searching for some kind of answer from ear infections to cankers. You name it.

I have cleaned it with some warm water with disinfectant but something I did notice is towards the bottom on the bulge there is a puncture wound. I pinched a pic from someone else's post who had the same issue as I struggle to get a pic of my pekins.

The mass has what feels like a hardish mass within it, surrounding areas are squishier. There is no discharge or anything from the puncture.

She is happy, eating, breathing normally, beak, ears all clean, she's even trying to go broody today. I'm guessing from the other person who posted something similar it could be an infect bite but they didn't respond as to whether their hen came out of it okay.

What would be the best cause of action? Will it go away on it's own?

I've left her alone for now. When I went back out to clean it, it still is very swollen. Pics attached, again pic of the brown hen is not mine but shows the puncture wound identical to mine.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would watch it, and possibly get some Benadryl (diphenhydramine) to treat for an allergic reaction to a bee/wasp sting or tick bite. Dosage is 1/2 of a 25mg tablet orally, given once. Check the ear canal for any drainage with a QTip, and note if there is any pus inside or evidence of mites.

 

[trottreacle]

I would watch it, and possibly get some Benadryl (diphenhydramine) to treat for an allergic reaction to a bee/wasp sting or tick bite. Dosage is 1/2 of a 25mg tablet orally, given once. Check the ear canal for any drainage with a QTip, and note if there is any pus inside or evidence of mites.

Thank you so much. I am going to give her some benadryl tomorrow. I thought I had some but it was a different antihistamine when I checked and I didn't dare give it to her in case it did more harm than good. Appreciate you getting back to me though, I will update tomorrow and hopefully it will start to go down with the medicine

 

[trottreacle]

I just wanted to follow my post up to say, my little grey pekin's swollen face went down on it's own in the end. It did stay a little bit firm for a few days but after now a couple of weeks it's more or less gone back to normal

 

[Eggcessive]

Thanks for the update. Glad that she is back to normal.

 

[NatJ]

I just wanted to follow my post up to say, my little grey pekin's swollen face went down on it's own in the end. It did stay a little bit firm for a few days but after now a couple of weeks it's more or less gone back to normal

Thank you very much for updating. It's nice to hear how things end, rather than just the beginning!

 

[TeresaW]

1. I didn't know chickens had ear lobes.
2. I thought pekins were ducks.

 

[NatJ]

2. I thought pekins were ducks.

Pekin is a breed of duck and a breed of chicken.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Pekin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pekin_Bantam

When a breed is named after a place, it is pretty common to find the same breed name in several kinds of animal. Other examples would be Orpington (duck or chicken) and Andalusian (horse or donkey or chicken)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_chicken
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orpington_Duck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusian_horse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andalusian_donkey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Andalusian