# Eye problem



## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Sorry for the lack of good pictures but maybe someone can tell me if is more likely an eye injury or something else. My 10 week old lavender orpington pullet has been holding her eye half closed for a couple days now. She's eating/drinking fine, normal
Poops and otherwise acting the same as usual.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

Sorry. I didn't realize how unhelpful these pictures are. I'll try to get a better one!


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)




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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

So, at the advice of my vet (who is also my boss and friend) I started using antibiotic eye drops. They were helping a bit. Then Tuesday of last week I got sick, so hubby took over house duties/child duties and chicken duty but wasn't doing the drops. By Friday morning I was in the hospital (my cultures showed I had e.coli). I was released Sunday. Monday my husband was still doing all the chicken stuff. Today, is the first day I've even seen any chicken in a week. Every thing looks great in coop #1. Same with coop #2. Coop #3 has two big blobs of frank blood by the big door and this chick has blood smears on her ruffly butt. Never had a coccidiosis outbreak before. Any advice? She's separate but from what I understand its already in the environment everyone else is in...I just wanted to monitor her on a more personal level. It seems she's the only one that is acting affected. She's eating/drinking-crop is full. Pooping and not every bm is bloody. From what I've read she seems to be around the fifth day of infection by the look of her stool-if she makes it to day eight she's on her way to recovery. Any help to offer? Should I remove the whole current deep litter system and start fresh after cleaning the coop? Do I assume the coccidia is only affecting her because she was sickly to begin with (the eye thing?)


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Do a fecal. There is a parasite, can't remember the name at the moment, that can cause bloody droppings. A common name is lung worm. 

It is possible that she had something going on that reduced her ability to keep other issues at bay.


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

> Any advice?


If you are not currently doing so, I'd start colonizing her bowels with organisms that will inhibit the overgrowth of coccidia...as I would for the rest of the flock as well. Fermented feed can help with this and ~more immediately~ mother vinegar in the water can help also.

If she doesn't respond to these immune system boosting methods, it's time to cull this one as a bird that is susceptible to infection as a genetic condition~ and not as a flock management or flock condition.

Build immune systems~and concentrate on only keeping animals that respond to that or have naturally strong ones already~ and you don't have to worry so much about biosecurity measures.


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## kessy09 (Jun 16, 2013)

So I did a fecal on this gal and she's showing a huge overload of coccidiosis. In the last few days, I've separated her, given her a small amount of milk in the morning mixed with a probiotic powder, fed fermented feed and then added the mother vinegar to her water after I take the milk out (I read about giving milk for a couple hours a day on BYC). Today is the first day there's been zero visible blood in her droppings. No one else in the flock is showing any signs at all. They've all been getting the mother vinegar in their water as well as the start of the fermented feed (it hasn't been fermenting for very long). The original pullet hasn't shown any symptoms other than the bloody stool. Even her eye is totally back to normal now. Questions:

1) do I continue to keep her separate? When can I put her back? 

2) could this have become a problem for her and no one else because she was fighting with the eye issue, therefore weaker?

3) my vet/boss wants me to put the entire flock on sulphadimethoxine at 20mg/kg every 12 hours. That will entail me weighing and orally medicating 77 chickens twice a day for the next 15 days. Does this sound appropriate?


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## Bee (Jun 20, 2013)

I'd put her back in with the flock and I wouldn't give that medicine. I'd wait and let the FF do it's magic, so that you won't have to use medicines any longer. Culturing her bowels with the correct bacteria will inhibit an overgrowth of the bad bacteria....giving a broad spectrum antibiotic will merely strip the bowels of good _and_ bad bacteria and guess which ones colonize more quickly? Yep..you guessed it, the baddies.

I'd also start a good culture in your coop and run with the use of deep litter that is kept there, not cleaned out, just layered in with various materials that will compost well along with the manure. Improve the culture of your soils and you won't have overgrowth of coccidia in the soil culture.

I'd feed in a trough and not on the ground...if feeding on the ground you just force them to keep eating the same coccidia over and over.

There are ways to keep your chickens healthy without ever accessing a med nor ever getting things like coccidia in your flock. There are many who are going back to these good ways and finding flock health like never before because it's the easiest way to keep your flock healthy..and not have to MAKE them healthy.


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