Hi folks! And- what breeds do I have?

Date sort Score sort
austinclarksf

austinclarksf

Chirping
7 Years
Dec 17, 2012
118
0
81
Hi folks,

I'm a 24 year old Californian serving an Americorps apprenticeship on an organic vegetable farm in Albuquerque New Mexico. My family got chickens a few years ago, and I've been working around them for a couple years, but not directly with them. I'd never owned a chicken until about three weeks ago.

I just got three chickens as a Christmas present! My girlfriend got me the girls three weeks ago, and I'm joining the forums because I've noticed an issue with my oldest girl's eye. If you know about such issues- please check my post at the end of this thread- https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/730354/under-one-eye-is-red-puffy-pictures-please-advice

Also- neither of us are familiar with breeds. My dad told me the oldest black/grey hen is a plymouth rock. What about the other two? The oldest is Mama Cass, the blonde is Mary Travers, and the brown girl is Buffy St. Marie. Only Mama Cass is laying, even though we were told they were all May 28th babies. I can get better pictures if needed!





 
Greetings from Kansas and
welcome-byc.gif
! Great to have you here! Welcome to the wonderful world of chickens! I am no chicken ID expert but I would say the gray speckled one is a barred rock - a color variation in Plymouth rocks. The rumpless one looks like an araucauna or an aracauna mix to me. I can't make out the third well enough to make a guess. You also might post your eye question here for more advice. Best of luck to you! https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/10/emergencies-diseases-injuries-and-cures
 
Thanks for the ID's! I'll post better pictures tomorrow of the blonde and the brunette.

The eye problem is as follows:

I've had the girls for three weeks, and the first week or so all the girls were fine. After the second week, I first noticed some 'spittle' in my oldest plymouth rock's eye. A few days later, she also stopped laying completely (5 days now, from once a day/every other day) Her behavior and breathing have been completely normal, her eye just seems to have spittle in it. A couple things happened around this time, so I really don't know what this could be or what triggered it.

First, the temp at night dropped to an average of 5-15 degrees from around 30, which could explain the egg dropoff. (I got them a timed heat lamp this week, after this eye spittle didn't go away, but no eggs yet after 2 nights) This chicken came from a cage with about 30 ducks and 10 chickens, so I'm thinking the change in temp at night could have got her sick?

Secondly, the day before I noticed this, the chicken in question got pooped on. Directly on her head, and over her eyes. She'd decided to nest directly under the roosting pole. I moved some nesting boxes under the pole to eliminate this problem. I didn't think anything of it, and didn't clean it off of her because she was dunking her head in some water already.

The spittle in her eye showed up the next day, and has come and gone for the past week. In the mornings, it's there, in the evening, it's gone, and visa-versa. Today I came home and the spittle was dripping from her eye. So, I grabbed her and washed her eye out with some water. I noticed a significant red bump right by her tear duct, where the spittle is exuding from. I cleaned her eye area up with a soft wet rag, trying to scrape off what looked like poop from around her eye. She did not seem irritated when I would press or touch the raised area.

So, is this an eye infection or a respiratory issue? Chickens love to dig their heads in all kinds of stuff, it's strange to me that some poop on her head would get her sick.

Her left eye is in question. I took them after spraying her eye down with water, ignore the matted feathers. But, the spittle is already visibly coming back. The pictures of her right eye are blurry (I took about a dozen but she's not used to being held) but you can clearly see how raised the bump is in contrast. When she looks at you straight on, the bump is so raised you can't see her eye.




 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom