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I am sorry I did not reply better yesterday, I was on my Iphone in the hospital while my wife had surgery. While I can read and make short statements on my Iphone it is not good for long explanations.
R2elk answered, I was just going to add, you might not notice the eyes unless you have had some time to observe a normal eyed turkey. It becomes obvious once you get use to normal eyes.
In the case of my hen that R2elk mentioned it had small eyes and was on my do not breed list. I was trying to put them to bed, as everyone here knows my turkeys and bed seldom go well together. They fight me all the time. My wife has better luck getting them to bed than I do.
It was a cold rainy/snowy/sleety evening the wind was blowing and all the turkeys went in except this one. It was a dark dusk. I tried to net her to catch her and bring her in. She was acting weirder than normal. She had been bumping into things, after the failed netting attempt, She took off on a dead run n a straight line. south towards "the Swamp".
She never slowed down when she got to the open pasture she was gone. It was not like she was headed to anything it was just running straight away from where I was. It is about 1/4 mile to the swamp. I tried to run after her and decided she was not worth the effort when I last saw her she was entering the pines around the swamp.
After talking to R2elk and what I knew about small eye syndrome from before, I am convinced her eyesight had deteriorated to the point she was blind in the conditions we had that evening.
As I understand it any turkey can have it, but self blues are the most likely to have it...Lavender is self blue, for some of us that go temporarily brain dead upon occasion.
In my case the small eye syndrome was self culling. I am sure a furry creature ate her.
I make sure I only breed the biggest eyed turkeys just to try and prevent this.
She would hit trees, bump off and go again, stumps, branches what ever.
