Since one of the hens had red mite, she has had a lump/scab on her left eye. The vet prescriber eye cream to reduce itching and inflammation and this worked almost immediately. I applied it for 5 days and the eye seemed to be on the mend. However, now a week later the eye seemed to be getting worse and so I started applying the cream again. Searches on Internet didn’t come up with any results so I submitted a question to an online vet and here is his reply:

” I suspect that she may have scratched or rubbed her eyelid in an effort to scratch the irritated area produced by the mites. Mites alone will not cause lumps in eyelids.
Birds often try to scratch itching eyes with their claws and often damage to the eye and surrounding tissue is the result. The lid will most likely have to heal on its own, and scar tissue build-up in the lid may produce a permanent bump in the lid. I would recommend stopping with the ointment since whatever good it is going to do has already been done, and the ointment itself can be irritating to birds, causing them to scratch at the ointment itself, and possibly causing even greater damage to the eye and surrounding tissues. See how she does over the next few days, stopping the ointment may allow the lid to heal faster as she may not bother it as much. If the problem should continue, any veterinarian, even one who mostly treats dogs and cats can probably help your hen, since eyes don’t vary much between species, and the treatments are very similar.”

So, it looks as though I’ll just have to keep an eye on her. This photo was taken on 6th January 2011. According to the online vet, the reason why the eye got better and then worse could be that she had developed an allergy to one of the ingredients in the cream which was why he recommended stopping to see if it got better by itself. Fingers crossed.