If you’re raising chickens, their health is in your hands, and thus, doing all you can to keep their health maintained is a must. If you realize that your chicken’s eyes are stuck closed you’d be right to be worried.
This article looks into possible reasons why your chickens’ eyes are stuck closed.
Table of Contents
Chickens’ eyes stuck closed:
A chicken with eyes that are stuck closed is a sign of a very sick chicken. This bird can go downhill fast. Here are reasons why your chicken’s eyes are stuck closed:
Infectious Coryza:
This is a fairly common respiratory disease that can affect your chicken, and, there have been some cases where it has affected pheasants and quails as well.
If your bird is older, weaker, and has suppressed immunity, then this disease can be deadly to your bird.
Infectious Coryza causes facial swelling in chickens, the facial swelling keeps the bird from being able to open its eyes.
Infectious Coryza affects the bird’s upper airways and causes issues all throughout the bird’s respiratory system.
It is both acute as well as chronic as the bird may get it once or the bird may have breakouts of this illness over long periods of time
Other signs of this illness:
In addition to the bird’s eyes being stuck closed as a result of facial swelling, this illness causes other symptoms such as
- Sneezing
- Decreased appetite
- Difficulty breathing
- Nasal discharge
- Pale comb
- Decreased egg production
- Thick discharge from the nares
- Inflammation
- Decreased activity
- Diarrhea
- A swollen comb
- Congestion
- Bubbles at the corner of the eye
- Crusty eyes
Treatment:
This ailment can be treated with antibiotics. Make sure that you visit your local vet to get the correct diagnosis and treatment for your bird.
Giving the bird the incorrect treatment will not be helpful in treating this ailment, in fact giving the bird incorrect antibiotics will cause antibiotic resistance in your bird.
Antibiotics will cure the bird but the bird will still be a carrier of this ailment and will shed the bacteria in the future. If new birds enter the flock, they will catch this disease as well.
A natural treatment for this ailment would be to give your bird a solution made up of 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, one gallon of water, and crushed garlic. This does not replace giving the bird antibiotics.
Giving the bird colloidal silver as well as grapeseed extract will also help, but not cure, the bird.
Mycoplasmosis:
This disease is also called the common cold or roup. It is not a new disease but it is a dangerous one.
It affects the respiratory system of birds but the symptoms can be seen all over the bird’s body. It is quite infectious making it a danger to your whole flock.
This disease causes the bird’s eyelids and sinuses to swell up keeping the bird’s eyes closed.
Birds that suffer the most from this disease seem to be the birds that have other issues like e coli or infectious bronchitis pathogens already in their bodies, stressed birds, birds with nutritional deficiencies, or birds that are exposed to ammonia or dust in excess in the air
Other signs of this ailment:
In addition to your bird’s eyes being stuck closed because their eyelids and sinuses are swollen, a bird suffering from this ailment may express other symptoms.
There are different types of mycoplasmosis, their symptoms include:
Mycoplasma gallisepticum:
- Nasal discharge
- Sweet-smelling discharge
- Feathers stained with discharge
- Sneezing
- Foamy eyes
- A reduced egg production
Mycoplasma synoviae:
- Swollen and hot joints
- Deformed eggshells
- Thin shells
What to do:
Unfortunately, there is no treatment for this disease.
Giving the bird antibiotics will not cure the bird but they will make the disease more tolerable. Giving the bird Tylan Soluble is also a treatment option if given in the early stages of the disease.
If these treatments don’t help then the bird may have to be culled.
FAQ:
What does a bird eye infection look like?
If your bird’s eyes are infected you’ll notice signs such as discharge at the eyes, crusts forming along the edges of the eyelids (as the disease progresses), swollen eyelids, red eyelids, holding the eyes closed, excessive blinking, and a reluctance to fly.
If your bird becomes reluctant to fly this could lead to exposure, starvation, or predation
How do you treat a bird’s eye infection?
The treatment for most eye infections in birds is antibiotic eye drops or salves.
These medications need to be given by a veterinarian so taking your bird to the vet as soon as you can is a must.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other chicken related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Chicken Pecked To Death, Chicken Irregular Pupil, Chicken Blind In One Eye, Lethargic Rooster With Closed Eyes