8 week old chick with milky eyes, very limited vision

[DarkWater1929]

oh yes i understand! i had to do a lot of tries to make a picture of my Giada's cataract. They love to pose but hate to show milky eyes, maybe because they can't see much and have fear to be attacked? i don't know
sorry i dindn't want to be unkind, i'm italian and i don't know english very well

Lol! No, I did not take your comment as unkind. Honestly! I am just self conscious about asking for help, and then not providing what is needed to obtain it. I envy you your bilingual abilities! I know only one language, and some would say that I am not quite fluent in that one.

 

[DarkWater1929]

IF it's cataract (but i'm not sure), it can be caused by injury, vitamin A deficiency, continue exposure to the light, dust, or ammoniaca in the coop

i hope that someone that know more will arrive in this 3d soon

Really! Vitamin A. We have so much dust, that if it were that, I would expect to have seen it before. But, vitamin A. I will supplement! I guess it is not reversible though?

 

[Waves]

I envy you your bilingual abilities! I know only one language, and some would say that I am not quite fluent in that one.

Only italian and english studied at school this forum helps me to improve my english [and a lot of stuffs about chickens ]

 

[DarkWater1929]

We had a legbar that had an opaque eye, along with a possibly deformed upper eyelid. This is her around 3 months old:
View attachment 1957696

She must have had something else going on bc she developed what looked to be tumors, first near the good eye, then one the bad eye. We had first thought she had an infection, and tried a multi course treatment, which included using Gentian Violet (at the time of this pic). This is her at 4 months of age:
View attachment 1957698
And the opaque bad eye at the same time as above pic. These tumors developed rapidly.
View attachment 1957697

So no one else in the flock ended up with any tumors or illness, so it may have been a congenital type disease (she was hatched with an opaque eye) or something that was not a contagious illness . We culled her shortly after the above pic. Nothing was helping and clearly tumors were growing, so we didn't think she needed to have her suffering prolonged.

I don't think yours looks quite this bad (the eye opacity), and ours was bale to get around pretty well for the duration of her life, although she did often seem to have moments of hesitation when something occurred in the run on the side of her bad eye, where she couldn't see.

That must have been awful! I am so sorry! I sincerely hope that we won't be headed down that path! I wonder, they say that inbreeding is not really an issue in chickens. I always had my doubts about that. I wonder if it could play a part in either bird's situation. My birds do have some of that, I believe.

 

[Waves]

Really! Vitamin A. We have so much dust, that if it were that, I would expect to have seen it before. But, vitamin A. I will supplement! I guess it is not reversible though?

i don't know... i'm giving carrots for example, to Giada, because of the cataract.
but i'm not seeing improvement (...i think in her case it's because she's 6 years old. your case is very different)
Waiting for other answers, i'm very interested!

Has the chick much difficult to eat and drink? she would have a personal place in the coop with food and drink (always in the same place)

 

[Eggcessive]

It is hard to find much info on eye disorders in poultry. A couple of old internet links I used to post have long disappeared. The pictures look like cataracts. Many things that can cause eye disorders are vitamin A or E deficiency, ammonia burns from dropping in a coop with poor air circulation, cataracts, injuries, infections, Mareks disease, and exposure to avian encephalomyelitis virus (epidemic tremors) as a baby chick.

 

[Acre4Me]

That must have been awful! I am so sorry! I sincerely hope that we won't be headed down that path! I wonder, they say that inbreeding is not really an issue in chickens. I always had my doubts about that. I wonder if it could play a part in either bird's situation. My birds do have some of that, I believe.

thanks. We have 2 other Legbars from the same hatch, along with 23 other chicks from same hatch across 9 other breeds. All seem fine, no other tumors or other concerns.

 

[DarkWater1929]

i don't know... i'm giving carrots for example, to Giada, because of the cataract.
but i'm not seeing improvement (...i think in her case it's because she's 6 years old. your case is very different)
Waiting for other answers, i'm very interested!

Has the chick much difficult to eat and drink? she would have a personal place in the coop with food and drink (always in the same place)

Sorry for the long delay! The chick is now an indoor pet. After watching how the other chickens attacked her, the hens with violence, the roosters with lacivious intent, despite her age and small stature, I realized that she needed to be apart. She has a sibling, who is twice her size. They called to one another so urgently, that I brought the sibling in to visit, and discovered the cause of our little girl's stunted growth. Her sister grabbed every morsel of food she got close to, before the little one could manage to find it. The bigger one ignored the other available food completely, focusing instead upon robbing her sibling. The wretched little snot! She was banished at once.

To answer your question, yes, she has trouble, unless the food is in her own pan. She has a skillet full of food, that is always in the same spot. She will stand in it, and have no trouble eating. The same is true of her water. She knows she is in the right place to drink, when her feet are wet. If she is not in her own space, however, as when someone is holding her, she doesn't seem to know enough to aim down, to get food. She smells offerings, I guess, because she knows when there is food handy. But, she stabs forward, into the air, not down to where it is set for her. I have tried holding treats (she loves frozen grapes, cut up) in front of her, but despite my best efforts to put the food where she is pecking, she nearly always misses it. The only solution, short of putting the food in her pan, is to offer a lot of it, on a small dish, spread out so that, wherever she connects, she hits a bit of food. It makes trying to spoil her dismayingly difficult.

She is a bottomless little thing, though! She is always hungry and thirsty, it seems. Making up for plenty of stolen meals.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

She is a bottomless little thing, though! She is always hungry and thirsty, it seems. Making up for plenty of stolen meals.

I'm glad to hear she's still hanging in there!
Have you weighed her to see if she's actually gaining weight?
It's good that she seems to be eating/drinking on her own, but always seeming hungry/thirsty, she may need to be tube fed at least once a day to ensure that she's getting enough.
Is her crop full every night before she goes to sleep?

 

[Waves]

Thank you for your message really glad she is an indoor pet and she's fine, despite all
Unfortunately my giada caught a respiratory virus. She was old, so she kept it in a worse form and died, it was so sad

Im saying this because i hadnt the time to discover tricks to manage bette her food and drink, and i cant share this tricks with you. Sorry