- Feb 14, 2013
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Hello, friends!
I have a small flock, of 1 Rooster, 9 Egg Laying Hens (7 of which are the rooster's offspring), and an extra who seems to be infertile/inbred/doesn't lay eggs and has a severely crooked beak. She still functions, but that's not what this is about!
One of the egg layers, has gone blind in one of her eyes. I first noticed this about a month ago. She would keep it closed, stick to the coop, not go out much with the other chickens. I caught her, examined her, and put some eye-drops in her eyes (a simple saline wash) to flush the eye out, and I do that about every day. She is very sprightly, forages on her own successfully, eats well, she's perky, seems to be laying eggs and singing about it, she just can't see in one eye. I've been washing her eye, cleaning off crustiness, and keeping my eye on her, but it's evident that this isn't going to cure the problem at hand.
Her eye is clouded over - you can see her pupil, it's just under this fogginess... Like I said, she's sprightly (and very fast and determined to not be caught by anyone or anything), so there are some days where giving her eyedrops and examining her are next to impossible. On Easter I wasn't able to give her drops or check her out, so I looked at her yesterday. Her eye has some crustiness on the corner, in the middle there was this goopy-white glob on her eyelid? I worked on it, it was really stuck to her eyelid, but moistened it and worked it off of her. I got all the crustiness and globbiness off of her eye, and washed her eye out - it seemed to peel away a layer of the cloudiness on her eye, actually, but I'm not sure if that's actually what's happening.
So, her left eye is clouded over, apparently blind (she will 'look' at me with that eye, but I have no way to tell if she can actually see. She does open it, it isn't stuck shut, but could very well be if I weren't monitoring it.) It's clearly effecting her balance, and she'll come close to walking into things/tripping over things/not being able to efficiently peck up feed 100%.
When I was holding her yesterday, I spotted a little tiny yellowy-white bug on her eyelid? Seemed to crawl out of her cheek feathers, and came close to her eye/crawled on her eyelid, but I don't know if that's a little louse or what's doing this to her eye.
And as such, I'm a sad chicken mama.
I'm not keeping them to eat or anything, they're just kind of my little chicken friends, so I'd rather not cull her if there's any chance she can be saved. She seems to be functioning alright otherwise. I don't want our other chickens to go blind, though
Anyone have any advice!?
(I will post some pictures tomorrow, I know that that's infinitely helpful)
I have a small flock, of 1 Rooster, 9 Egg Laying Hens (7 of which are the rooster's offspring), and an extra who seems to be infertile/inbred/doesn't lay eggs and has a severely crooked beak. She still functions, but that's not what this is about!
One of the egg layers, has gone blind in one of her eyes. I first noticed this about a month ago. She would keep it closed, stick to the coop, not go out much with the other chickens. I caught her, examined her, and put some eye-drops in her eyes (a simple saline wash) to flush the eye out, and I do that about every day. She is very sprightly, forages on her own successfully, eats well, she's perky, seems to be laying eggs and singing about it, she just can't see in one eye. I've been washing her eye, cleaning off crustiness, and keeping my eye on her, but it's evident that this isn't going to cure the problem at hand.
Her eye is clouded over - you can see her pupil, it's just under this fogginess... Like I said, she's sprightly (and very fast and determined to not be caught by anyone or anything), so there are some days where giving her eyedrops and examining her are next to impossible. On Easter I wasn't able to give her drops or check her out, so I looked at her yesterday. Her eye has some crustiness on the corner, in the middle there was this goopy-white glob on her eyelid? I worked on it, it was really stuck to her eyelid, but moistened it and worked it off of her. I got all the crustiness and globbiness off of her eye, and washed her eye out - it seemed to peel away a layer of the cloudiness on her eye, actually, but I'm not sure if that's actually what's happening.
So, her left eye is clouded over, apparently blind (she will 'look' at me with that eye, but I have no way to tell if she can actually see. She does open it, it isn't stuck shut, but could very well be if I weren't monitoring it.) It's clearly effecting her balance, and she'll come close to walking into things/tripping over things/not being able to efficiently peck up feed 100%.
When I was holding her yesterday, I spotted a little tiny yellowy-white bug on her eyelid? Seemed to crawl out of her cheek feathers, and came close to her eye/crawled on her eyelid, but I don't know if that's a little louse or what's doing this to her eye.
And as such, I'm a sad chicken mama.
I'm not keeping them to eat or anything, they're just kind of my little chicken friends, so I'd rather not cull her if there's any chance she can be saved. She seems to be functioning alright otherwise. I don't want our other chickens to go blind, though
Anyone have any advice!?
(I will post some pictures tomorrow, I know that that's infinitely helpful)
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