Blindness in Chickens

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FriendFarm

FriendFarm

In the Brooder
7 Years
Aug 17, 2012
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So I own 17 plymouth rock hens, aged approximately 6 months. I recently noticed that one of my hens was blind in one eye, but contributed it to a rooster that unfortunately disappeared a couple of days before. I noticed today that another hen was blind in both eyes when she didn't come to roost at night. They have been vaccinated for Marek's Disease and I dewormed them about two weeks ago. The lens appears to shattered in the chicken with only one eye blind, and in the other chicken one lens appears to be shattered and the other is rather cloudy. They have a clean chicken coop and free range in our yard. I have both hens separated from the others. What is causing this, and how do we fix it?
Any advice welcome.
 
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I have a rooster that as a cloudy eye. He doesn't see out of it very well but, he gets along fine. Other than that I have not experienced any optical problems in my chickens, so I am in no way an expert. It is strange that more than one of your chickens has it though. Do they have any other symtoms at all? And where did you purchase your birds from?
 
There are no other symptoms (that I have seen). We purchased our birds from Murray McMurray Hatchery. The birds are acting like they're fine, so it's not those two birds that I'm worried about, it's if other birds start becoming blind.
 
Pictures of the eyes might help.

A few months ago, I had a chicken go blind. Her only symptom was white spots in the pupil of the eyes.
I did a lot of googling and wasn't able to come up with much.
Mareks disease
cataracts
trauma

It didn't match up to ocular Mareks, or cataracts. There was some evidence that she may have been attacked. (I don't know by what as I was in the yard the day it happened)
I took her to an avian vet, who was also stymied. She thought it was white blood cells collecting in the eye. She didn't know why. I was still leaning towards neurological damage from the attack.
I syringe fed her and had her on anti-biotics and anti-inflamatories for 17 days with no improvement. I finally made the decision to have her euthanized.
One interesting thing was, the few references I found about trauma causing blindness, all were Ameracauna or EEs. Don't know if that means anything.

Imp- Good luck
 
An idea is that another hen has been attacking them. If she has, do we need to put her down, or is there another way to stop it? Also, Both hens eyes constricted when I shined a light on them, although one of the eyes of the completely blind hen only had minimal constriction.
 
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Now another one of my chickens is blind, and she only has the white pinpoints in each eye (pics tomorrow). They were all vaccinated for Mareks and like I said earlier, I dewormed them two weeks ago. I know other people have posted stuff about this, but I can't find out what's going on. The three chickens are in isolation, but is it a disease?
 
Imp, I just found this post from last year - was amazed at your comments about Ameraucana/EE's being most likely to go blind from trauma, as that's exactly what's happened to us. My EE was attacked by a hawk and I thought she was dead. After she recovered from shock I realized she was completely blind. It's been well over a week now, and she's gotten her appetite back, but I'm pretty sure she's 100% blind (though one eye looks normal; the other was closed for a few days but is mostly open, but dull-looking, now.) We did the anti-inflammatory thing, thinking it was cerebral swelling. I'm willing to give her another few days, and maybe put her outside (separate from the other girls) and see if she can figure out where her food is, but I'm not willing to hand-feed her forever and I don't think I want her in my living room forever either! Right now when she's alone she sits perfectly still - all day. When I come in and she hears me, she rustles around and will start lurching around trying to find food. Once she realizes where the pile is she'll peck at it until she's full, but she doesn't seek it out until I put her head right up to it.

I don't see a happy ending here!
 
jahphotogal said:
Imp, I just found this post from last year - was amazed at your comments about Ameraucana/EE's being most likely to go blind from trauma, as that's exactly what's happened to us. My EE was attacked by a hawk and I thought she was dead. After she recovered from shock I realized she was completely blind. It's been well over a week now, and she's gotten her appetite back, but I'm pretty sure she's 100% blind (though one eye looks normal; the other was closed for a few days but is mostly open, but dull-looking, now.) We did the anti-inflammatory thing, thinking it was cerebral swelling. I'm willing to give her another few days, and maybe put her outside (separate from the other girls) and see if she can figure out where her food is, but I'm not willing to hand-feed her forever and I don't think I want her in my living room forever either! Right now when she's alone she sits perfectly still - all day. When I come in and she hears me, she rustles around and will start lurching around trying to find food. Once she realizes where the pile is she'll peck at it until she's full, but she doesn't seek it out until I put her head right up to it.

I don't see a happy ending here!
Click to expand...
I'm sorry. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Imp
 
Hmmmmm... interesting! I've got 1 golden comet out of 3 that are about 5-6 yrs. old. I found her in the middle of the chicken lot, the morning before Christmas Eve, sopping wet. She had apparently been there throughout the night and through a ferocious storm. (They always go to the coop on their own). She doesn't seem to want to move too much but will wobble/ stagger around. I picked her up and placed her in a laying box in the coop to get her dried off and a bit secluded from the others (1 was pecking at her). She appears to have either approaching blindness or some kind of depth perception issue. She is eating off of a paper plate and drinking from a bowl, but I have to sit with her. On the other hand, when hand-fed, she seems somewhat energetic.I realize that she is old, but I hate to see her suffer. Any suggestions?
 

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