Chickens are gentle, intelligent birds who require a lot of care and patience to keep. Unkempt coops, unventilated and congested houses, and unhygienic settings can easily cause stress and illness in chickens. These birds can also be aggressive – chickens fight and peck each other all the time, so injury is a common problem.
If your chicken has watery eyes or some sort of gunk stuck in the tear duct, this is a sign of bad health in chicken. Neosporin can be put on your chicken’s eye as first aid as it is a standard treatment for wounds in these birds. However, any such problem should be immediately brought to the vet’s notice.
This article shall cover all you need to know about treating eye infections in chickens.
Why Does My Chicken Have Gunk In Its Eye?
There are many underlying causes as to why there is a discharge of pus or gunk in your chicken’s eye. Most of it relates to diseases like mycoplasmosis, coryza, conjunctivitis, or injury in the eye. The mentioned diseases have a low risk of survival, but injury from playing around is treatable in chicken eyes.
Having a first aid kit for your poultry will prove handy in the future. Neosporin is a common ointment used for treating wounds on hens but is safe to apply to the eyes. You can use this product as first aid before taking your hens to the vet.
Is Neosporin Safe For Chickens To Use?
Yes. According to the FDA, Neosporin is completely okay to use on chicken, even sensitive spots like the eye. Bacitracin and Neosporin are two antibiotics you can put on chicken as first aid. You have to avoid products that have added pain relievers. You can identify them by the suffix ‘caine’ in the name.
What Causes Eye Infections In Chicken?
There are three main reasons behind eye infections in chickens – bacteria, fungus, virus, or injury. These can all be avoided by simply maintaining your chicken coop’s hygiene.
- Bacteria
Various bacteria can cause eye infections in chickens. For example, the salmonella bacteria causes pink eye or conjunctivitis, which causes pus or inflammation in the inner eyelids and membrane. This can even grow to become ophthalmitis which is very painful for the chicken.
Bacterial diseases have a tendency to spread through other infected chickens or when hatching.
- Fungus
Fungal infections can come from food or unhygienic surroundings. Damp bedding or wet litter can cause mold to grow quickly, leading to Aspergillus problems.
Though this mainly affects the respiratory tract, it can grow onto the brain or the eye, causing yellow plaques under the bird’s eyelids, promoting inflammation and eye damage.
- Injury
Any untreated injuries can become infected due to all the germs and bacteria it collects as an open wound. Knowing chickens, they can get irritated and cause even more damage to their injured eyes by rubbing them.
- Virus
Some viruses can also be behind the damage to your chicken’s eye. Viral diseases like avian pox can cause lesions that look like blisters around the eye or on any area not covered with feathers – like the legs or the head. Sometimes, this disease can even cause temporary blindness.
How To Treat Eye Infection In Chicken?
Eye infection in chickens can be treated according to the disease and its prescribed medicine. While you can give first aid to your bird with Neosporin, do not try to apply it every day. Always use antibiotics that have been prescribed by the vet and go through with the medication.
You do not want to make the eye infection worse by self-diagnosing and treating the condition. The following is a step-by-step guide on how to treat eye infections in chickens.
- Separate The Infected Chickens
The first step is to separate the infected bird from the rest of the coop. With the help of your vet, make sure that the affected area is an infection and not some injury or other respiratory illness.
If the condition turns out to be Chicken Respiratory Disease (CRD), it can spread to birds rapidly. Since prevention is always better than cure, separating them at first is the best idea.
- Clean The Affected Area
If your chicken is wounded or infected in the eye, it will probably also be leaking discharge. Using a soft and damp cloth, clean the damaged area around it gently. Chickens are very delicate creatures, and eyes are just as fragile – hence, do not use soap or other medicine, which can cause irritation.
- Medicate Carefully
Never miss out on the instructions to follow and the medication prescribed by the doctor. It will most likely be liquid, so use a syringe to apply or feed your chicken. You can do so by wrapping a towel around your chicken to hold it safely in case of any struggle that your bird might do.
In cases when your hen does not eat willingly, it is necessary to force-feed the medicine to them and supervise them until it gets better or the infection clears up.
Related Questions
Can You Flush Bird’s Eyes?
Yes, it is possible to flush a bird’s eyes. Simply use your thumb to open the upper eyelid gently and then flush with tepid water or saline solution for at least minutes.
What To Do If I Do Not Have Neosporin?
There is a simple, homemade solution that can treat bird eye infections. Water mixed with salt, or saline water, makes an excellent antiseptic for chicken injuries and eye infections. You can make this solution as first aid.
Is Eye Infection In Chicken Treatable?
Yes, with proper care, time, and maintenance of cleanliness, all eye infections are mostly curable.
Final Thoughts
Sometimes, chickens fail to recover because they lose the will to thrive. Since stress is a significant cause of all kinds of diseases in chickens, some birds fail to recover, being overcome by anxiety. Hence, do not blame yourself if a wound or an infection becomes fatal, as sometimes it depends on your hens.
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