5yo cochin with crusty eyes

[Iain Utah]

When feeding this morning, I noticed my 5yo blue cochin hanging on her perch. When I approached, she appeared blind and both her eyes were crusty. I gently picked her up and placed her onto the floor by the food. Within a minute, she wandered outside to her friends and began eating, so she obviously is not blind.

She was fine yesterday, and the rest of my flock are good this morning. Any ideas what could have caused this and what is the best way to clean her eyes?

 

[JustAChickenLoverOverHere]

Any pics?

 

[Iain Utah]

Hm... it appears to be self resolving, but you can kind of see the gunkiness in her right eye. I just ran out and took these pictures.

 

[Eggcessive]

Crusty or gunky eyes could be a sign of a respiratory disease or she might have been pecked and suffered an eye infection. I would clean the eye with saline or water twice a day, and apply eith Terramycin eye ointment or plain Neosporin ointment. Look for any bubbles or foam in an eye, sneezing, or noisy breathing. Have you ever had any birds with a similar problem before?

 

[Iain Utah]

I have a gander who had an eye pecked out 6 years ago (that was gross, but it didn't slow him down one bit), and the occasional single eye appear with bubbling discharge in a duck or goose, but with them I can offer a clean bowl of water and they clean themselves and the issue self resolves. Only once was an eye injury bad enough on one of my geese that I got prescription topical antibiotic cream to treat her. But, I've never had a chicken eye injury or seen both eyes crusted closed before.

I will give her eyes a good saline cleaning this afternoon. Not sure if I have any eye ointment that is not long expired, but will check.

Thanks for responding!

 

[Myrshine]

It doesn’t look too much like a peck to me. Is there blood in or around the eye? Conjunctivitis in birds is normally caused by a respiratory disease.


In my experience and research, this looks like classic Chronic Respiratory Disease (CRD), or most commonly known as Mycoplasma Gallisepticum (MG). MG is a bacterial infection of poultry, affecting all different species of birds. This disease is most commonly given from infected parents to the offspring, as the MG bacteria can be transmitted vertically into the eggs of developing embryos, making any chicks that hatch, always infected and sick with the bacteria. So please please PLEASE don’t breed from your sickly infected flock! MG is a permanent lifelong chronic disease- meaning, that you can treat or have the symptoms go away, but whenever the bird gets stressed again, the symptoms will keep coming back or get worse. All birds (even recovered birds) remain lifetime long carriers of the MG bacteria, spreading and shedding it through their feces, feathers, dander, respiratory secretions and other bodily fluids. This is a lifetime disease of poultry and is incurable. Since MG is a bacteria, antibiotics can help keep symptoms at bay until the symptoms resurface. That being said, most choose to cull all birds and start over fresh. If you’d rather not, then the other option is to keep a closed flock- no new birds in and no birds leave your sick flock.



Keep in mind that over-use and/or misuse of antibiotics also creates antibiotic-resistant bacteria, making the disease harder to treat than before. It’s critical in any livestock, especially poultry, to get any sick or symptomatic birds tested to find out which specific disease they have as soon as possible.



Here's more information about MG:



https://extension.umd.edu/sites/ext... Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) Infecti....pdf



https://www.freedomrangerhatchery.com/blog/protecting-your-flock-what-you-need-to-know-about-mg-ms/



https://afarmgirlinthemaking.com/respiratory-conditions-poultry-mycoplasma-in-chickens/



https://m.facebook.com/groups/381727643241021/permalink/382070023206783/?ref=content_filter

https://m.facebook.com/groups/381727643241021/permalink/405654594181659/?ref=content_filter



I hope this helps!

 

[Iain Utah]

Thanks for the interesting reading. I certainly hope that is not her problem. I've had her since she was a day old and she's always been a huge, healthy, happy girl. Also, I find it odd that I've never seen this before in my 80+ birds I've kept for years, and most of my birds are seniors at this point. I seem to lose one bird annually to natural causes.

While I do not breed, sell, or eat chicken or eggs, no matter how hard I try to exercise 100% birth control measures on my property with all my birds, my muscovy girls manage to nest where I cannot access and hatch babies every year that we sell. I will check to see if I can get them tested, just to be sure.

 

[Myrshine]

Thanks for the interesting reading. I certainly hope that is not her problem. I've had her since she was a day old and she's always been a huge, healthy, happy girl. Also, I find it odd that I've never seen this before in my 80+ birds I've kept for years, and most of my birds are seniors at this point. I seem to lose one bird annually to natural causes.

While I do not breed, sell, or eat chicken or eggs, no matter how hard I try to exercise 100% birth control measures on my property with all my birds, my muscovy girls manage to nest where I cannot access and hatch babies every year that we sell. I will check to see if I can get them tested, just to be sure.

It’s fine if their breeding to stay with you. And some birds never show symptoms again, especially if they’re happy. These diseases come from stressers.

 

[Iain Utah]

Well, it is a total mystery to me. My hen's conjunctivitis self-resolved within a couple hours of my discovery of the issue and has not returned. No other birds showed any signs of eye issues. Hoping she just got an irritant in her eyes.

Thanks again for the information!