Swollen eye

Went out this morning to feed the hens and saw one has a slightly swollen eye. It's totally healthy looking otherwise, ate and had good energy.
A quick internet search was completely unhelpful as most sources went into possible exotic diseases, or seriously in depth treatments.
anyone know what the most common cause would be and what the easiest treatment might be?
Right now I'm leaning towards rubbing the eye area with antibacterial cream.
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks

could be anything really. If she's not bothered by it and it's not visibly infected then an antibiotic ointment isn't really going to do much good. I've found that creams and ointments tend to pick up more dirt and dust which just causes then hen more stress. I'd give it a day or so and see how she progresses. Chances are she'll be fine in a day or so. I've seen a lot of weird things go on with chickens and in most cases, it just sorts itself out. She might have scratched it or gotten pecked by a flock mate... who knows. Chickens do strange things.

If she goes off the food or becomes lethargic then you may want to intervene. I couldn't tell you what to do as I'm a hands-off sort of person with these matters. I generally try to let nature sort it out.

I would have to do some looking to remember what the name, symptoms, and all are, but the treatment is a product called vetrx, put a drop in the corner of each eye and a drop into each nostril for 3-5 days. Vetrx is a handy-dandy, double-duty, do-it-all medication to have around the poultry yard for the treatment of respitory problems and things like eyeworms, (which could be what's bothering your hen). If it's not an eyeworm, the vetrx won't do any harm.

Thanks for the response craig.
yeah I have the exact same attitude you do when it comes to this type of thing.
I don't want her to suffer, but I'm not going to go crazy trying to treat her.

I'll look into the Vetrx Tracy, thanks!

Hope your hen feels better soon. Poor girl.

Could you share a photo with us?

It could be something as simple as a pollen allergy (I have one hen that sneezes uncontrollably if she goes near certain grass) or maybe some dust in her eye. It could be a bug bite, or a scratch. It could be some deadly super-exhotic new desease that will be named after you and your hen - but probably not this last one.

Usually with this sort of thing, I give it 24 hours before intervening. If it's not immediately life threatening or contagious, then 9 times out of 10, they sort themselves out with a good nights sleep. In the mean time, I would keep a close eye on her and if there were any drastic changes I would take action. Also, if she's being picked on, I might isolate her for a day or two to get her strength up. It may be a good time to check the hens and house for lice and other bugs. If the coop hasn't been cleaned in a while, this might be the motivation to do it.

If I'm really worried about them, but again it's not urgent, I would add electro-vit, or other chicken vitamin mix to their water.

If it's still there the second day, or if it suddenly gets worse, then I would do a very close examination to determine why it's happening, and then what to do about it. It could be something as simple as a salt water wash. I hesitate to use an antibiotic cream so close to the eye, unless it's specifically designed for eyes.

Let us know how it goes.

I only noticed it today. I'll give it a better look tonight after work.
Thanks again for the help everyone.

Took a closer look last night, swollen with a little foam in the corner of the eye, no obvious change in behavior or vitality.
I did end up rubbing neosporin on the area around the eye.
This morning it was not noticeably worse which is probably a good thing.

Pretty sure you have a hen with an eyeworm, do a google search for chicken eyeworm, I believe you'll be able to find a match.

Well, I ended up spending more time and energy worrying about this chicken's eye than was really necessary it seems.
I did end up rubbing neosporin around the eye area twice, by Saturday(3 nights after initial post to this thread) the chicken was fine. Eye back to normal.
At no point during this did the hen have any behavioral changes, which is probably a good indicator that it was a infected scratch or viral infection or something natural.
I did end up getting some of the vetRX ordered, it seems like a good thing to have around as Tracy suggested.
Thanks to everyone who helped out.