Chick losing eyesight - 4 wks old

[MoaMama]

Aloha! I have chickens of my own but recently a feral hen had chicks. Around 3 weeks old she abandoned them in a storage shelf in my yard. 3 out of 4 are able to survive (so far) on their own but one of them is struggling significantly - I'm not sure if it's failure to thrive or due to possibly losing his vision (pretty sure he's a Roo). He is about 1/3 the size of his siblings. I'll attach photos of each eye. I am fostering him currently in hopes he might be able to gain enough weight to return outside. I believe the vision in his left eye is definitely severely diminished and minimal in his right eye. I realize all I have attached are two photos of his eyes, but I was hoping someone might recognize the tint/blue color.

Please let me know your thoughts on if the vision might be temporary or permanent at this point.

 

[2ndTink]

I've never seen that before, can chickens get any form of pinkeye?

@TwoCrows @Debbie292d

 

[Debbie292d]

Aloha! I have chickens of my own but recently a feral hen had chicks. Around 3 weeks old she abandoned them in a storage shelf in my yard. 3 out of 4 are able to survive (so far) on their own but one of them is struggling significantly - I'm not sure if it's failure to thrive or due to possibly losing his vision (pretty sure he's a Roo). He is about 1/3 the size of his siblings. I'll attach photos of each eye. I am fostering him currently in hopes he might be able to gain enough weight to return outside. I believe the vision in his left eye is definitely severely diminished and minimal in his right eye. I realize all I have attached are two photos of his eyes, but I was hoping someone might recognize the tint/blue color.

Please let me know your thoughts on if the vision might be temporary or permanent at this point.

Some chicks/chickens have blue eyes. Is there something you're noticing that leads you to believe it's partially blind? Do you know what breed it is as having nothing to compare it to, I don't know that it looks like something's wrong.

If you think there is something wrong with its eyes, as possibly an infection, you can rinse them out with sterile saline solution and put Terramycin ointment in its eyes.

 

[MoaMama]

Thank you for responding, I appreciate your input. The chicken is feral/jungle fowl on the island of Oahu. It's just a mix of the other feral chickens that run around in my neighborhood. But the other roosters that I've rehabbed did not look like this; they had a black pupil with orange/red/yellow iris. So this is definitely different...maybe they are just immature.

He has a hard time 'seeing' the chicken scratch or any other kind of food/water I give him. He tries to peck at the direction of it, but it's more like a hit or miss. Additionally I put him on the ground to see how he could navigate and he was coming around the corner of a wall and walked into the side of it. He's quite a calm chick to start with, so it's not like he was running around crazy and ran into the corner of the wall.

He has a few bald spots on his back/shoulder area too. I'm not sure if he was being pecked at or what. They aren't bleeding/oozing, but definitely bare.

 

[Debbie292d]

It could be vitamin deficiency too. If you have some Poultry Cell or other type of complete vitamin for their water or food, etc., or specifically Vitamin A. Most of us don't have that just lying around though but you could find that at any convenience/drug store.