[GRAPHIC] Bad eye injury/infection

[olliepm]

A few of you will have already seen pictures of my first budgie, and bird for that matter in the Gender section of the forum. I am very sad to say that I came home today to quite a horrifying looking eye injury or infection. I am unsure what caused this in the first place, but I have taken her to the vet and been prescribed antibiotics, anti inflammatory meds, and eye drops. She was administered two injections as well. The only reason I'm posting is because I wondered if anyone had dealt with anything similar, and also for straight up opinions on whether this bird is likely to survive. I prefer the truth with no sugar-coating.

Addition info: I came home, and found her scratching her head against the end of her perch. The perch had a fair bit of blood on it and was the only thing in the cage with any blood. I have since removed everything from the swing to the cuttlefish from the cage, except for the two perches which are wrapped in lots of toilet paper, in the hope that this will either prevent scratching or at least soften the surface of the perch. My largest concern is the damage she will do to herself if she can't leave it alone. I'm not entirely sure, but I think after just taking these pictures that some swelling may have gone down already.

Pics here:

[ruthpaton]

Poor little budgie! That looks horrible and I'm glad you could get her to a vet as it must be very painful and distressing for her. I honestly have never seen anything like it so can't offer an opinion but at least the vet thought it worth treating. I do hope she responds quickly to the treatment. There are others who know a lot more than me who should reply soon with more help for you. Please keep us posted on how she is doing.

[olliepm]

I will do. I was planning to take a few pictures every day to get a better idea of the swelling reduction (if there is any). According to the vet, if it stays much the same after a week it's pretty bad news. My poor bird =[

[stace]

Poor baby. That must be awfully upsetting. I have no experience with this sort of problem. Let's hope that the meds will stop whatever the irritation is and stop her scratching it up like that.

We'll see if anyone else comes on the forum with hands-on experience of something similar.

[Hezz]

Ollie, sorry about your bird's eye! Did the vet suggest an elizabethan collar? I don't know if it would work but there would be no harm in trying. But surely even if Budgie loses the eye, she could still survive?

If you came home to find her like this and she was fine before, that points to an injury. On my computer it almost looks like she has lost the eye, but I gather that isn't the case? I sincerely hope your little hen recovers quickly.

Of course don't use this while she is on ointments/eye drops, but Barrie swears by cold weak black tea to bathe an irritated/infected eye. The tea apparently is very soothing. This may be useful in future. Good luck.

[Deleted]

contact barrie on
[e-mail]
email the pics to him asap... .
i hope your budgie gets well soon ...
regards mick...

[budgiefriend]

Poor little thing. I hope the meds work. She's lucky she has you to look after her. That will keep her spirit up.

[BudgiesBuddy]

This looks very bad. Poor little budgie.

[sweetie]

Bless her little heart poor thing. Wishing her all the best x

[olliepm]

Hezz: The vet did not recommend any kind of collar and because of this I assumed there was no such thing for budgies, however she does need to drink her water which contains the antibiotic. She has still been trying to rub her eye on her perch but the toilet paper is doing a really good job at softening the surface so far, and I don't know if it's that the blood has dried up that's creating an illusion, but the swelling really does seem to have gone down. The amount of dried blood on the toilet paper today was minimal and I think it probably just came from rubbing her feathers on it. I did see her possibly trying to eat the toilet paper, but it's the lesser of two evils really.

Things haven't got worse, that's for sure =] And something that cheered me up was that she is behaving as she normally does most of the time, like a healthy bird. Hopefully that rules out an RI, which could display symptoms of conjunctivitis.

@mickmay: I will do, but who is he?

[barrieshutt]

Hi Ollie , it appears the eye has a rupture , i would be treating the eye twice a day with an anti biotic eye drop , anti Bs in water is a waste of time , the budgerigar drinks so little and will go for days with out drinking because of the anti Bs in the water, check out your vet for THE drops , if you treat the bird twice daily you can then at the same time using a syringe does him with anti BS

[olliepm]

Thanks a lot for getting back to me so quickly. Aside from the anitbiotics in her water, and the anti-inflammatory by mouth, the vet gave me Fucithalmic eye drops. I was told they also contain antibiotics and she gets two drops a day. Are these eye drops any good?

Also, I wondered about the dried blood around the affected area. Will those feathers be okay to leave as they are? I don't know if I mentioned but this is my first bird of any kind and she's been with me for only a week. Trust my luck...

[barrieshutt]

the drops are okay , i would trim the feathers from around the eye

[stace]

How is she doing? Any improvement in the eye yet?

[olliepm]

I've just got up and gave her an eye drop and I do have an update, though I'm not sure it's a good one. I noticed a little more blood this morning on the perch and she had been rubbing her eye on it as usual. If you look at the pictures, you can see that the bese part of half of her eye is covered with fleshy swelling. This swelling appears to have turned to a scab, that she has almost completely rubbed off. The scab is now hanging by a thread, revealing the same fleshy swelling as before, albiet less swollen.