I was looking around at swollen eye for Bantam - chickens and found
your website such that it seems no one has recognized the potential for such birds as pidgeons to transfer fungus to other birds such as domesticated chickensSuch that as I have used many people's information in caring for this Bantam I decided I should inform the same websites of what I have recently discovered as an educated and trained but not certified lab person and licensed cosmetologist who is trained in diseases of the nail and nail bed such that I recognized that this is probably a fungus getting into the respiratory system from pidgeons or other birds that can be I believe sporulated and ingested later on to cause disease in the birds. Where I was being trained in St. Petersburg Florida they had developed their own system for checking old buildings for this very pathogenic when inspired in large amounts for some small amounts for other pidgeon fungus on old buildings before they were acquired for rennovations and use for businesses. If the pidgeon droppings were negative there was not any more need for the expensive procedures to clean up the buildings which were done in full covered gear that also had breathing protection by Smith Kline and Beecham. Personally I am very
impressed by the mycologist who designed the bird seed agar to check for bird pidgeon dropping fungus along with the procedures for treatment. Also the fact this cute slightly chubby young woman climbed all over buildings collecting pidgeon droppings in full gear and loved it. A rather adventurous soul which I would never have thought this of a highly trained Mycologist with a Masters degree.For this reason and others I probably finally figured that this type of disease is often fatal because it requires special medium to detect it.Tea tree oil and other various African oils that I have have helped this bird immensely recently such that it is sad I did not know sooner so it did not suffer so much for so long that it is probably not likely it will survive healing up but one never knows. My guess is this is a fungal infection of the sinuses quite possibly when the immune system is under distress from various things like over crowding, poor nutrition because they are omnivores and an all corn wheat scratch diet is inadequate obviously if they are caged as mine favor bugs and yard plants more than anything else.
I have had this swollen eye problem for about a year with a very nice Bantam I have it just lingers. Recently after trying all suggested I took it
off antibiotics and began just washing out its eyes which seemed to help greatly then it began having problems standing up straight so I began varying the diet to include vitamins and occassionally potassium in case washing the eye made it loose potassium which helped a little bit. While handling the Bantam that never seems to die eventually it scratched at the side of a couple of my nail beds and it got infected so I tried various things to find that problem for myself - iodine helped along with tea tree oil mixed with camphophenique suggesting thus that this is not a parasite and not a bacteria or virus but quite possibly a fungus as it has affected my nail beds. Medicine for Fungus can be very deadly or cause cancer but many natural products help kill fungal growths. Since I have been putting these ointments and oils into the ear opening this Bantam has begun walking upright and keeping its head upright along with drinking water and feeding itself. When I did not feed the Bantam prior to this it would climb it's cage for me to feed it so I have continued to care for it because obviously it wants to live. I suppose putting it out of its misery would have been more humane but it still acts like it desires to live. My guess is the bird got ahold of some fungus from a pidgeon that got into the yard that is common for them to contract after getting very cold from going up into a tree in my backyard over my porch near my bedroom window that I would check on them or talk to them out of occassionally on a cold rainy night where I could not reach it to bring it in. As often inner ear infections I have had have been helped by ear drops I used this first on the bantam with great success and when I ran out I puchased in the Afro American section for hair and skin that tends to be dry various natural oils with antibiotic capabilities that I have used on my very dry skin in the past such that I knew about its existance for use on dry skin and hair. I am very glad my black friends told me about these products such that I have used them with great success in the past for myself and now for my little bantam who use to talk to me until he got a headcold he never recovered from.Fungus is very difficult to cure so make sure you keep old moldy food out of their containers especially if your birds are inbred and less resistant to disease.
As this is a very tiny white Bantam my guess is there is some inbreeding from this bantam that did not exist in my others who experienced similar things and did not get this sickly.