Injured or Under Developed eye in chick?

[RussianChickens]

I have 6 pullets from TSC this year. I have been noticing a disturbing change in the eyes of 2 of the 6. I have 3 australorps, 2 sexlink and 1 Barred rock. All 3 of the Ausis have this 'condition' to varying degrees.

The eyes on the chicks seem to be developing wrong. The eyes seem sunken in a tad and back towards the ear leaving the eye slit too small and too far in front of the eyeball exposing the 3rd lid rather than the eyeball itself. One chick had half its eyeball covered with the lids that are not big enough for his eye. He tends to keep this eye shut more often than not can can not see out of it other than detecting a shadow or light.
The eyes have no discharge or abnormal coloration or any indication of infection or injury. This is ONE eye on each chick (not sure why both eyes aren't the same). It has been getting worse as they grow. Two have this to a concerning degree. The other 3 chicks of other breeds are fine with normal eyes.


Has anyone else seen this before and knows how the eyes turned out? Did this problem self correct or are these birds destine to be culls? (I don't want those genetics in my flock so I am thinking about culling them any way)

Or is this some kind of eye injury? The eyeballs look normal, just too far back and eye slits too small.

I haven't see this before, but I had awful luck with ausi chicks last year too. I got two pullets in a batch and both died during shipping. I ordered another batch of chicks from a different hatchery with 3 ausis and all those died in shipping as well. Every other chick of the other breeds was perfectly healthy except one out of 25. Is the ausi breed more fragile and riddled with problems than other breeds? I'm having no luck with them from any hatcheries.

 

[chooks4life]

If it was both eyes, I'd think it might be just genetic shaping like with some Brahmas, not a fan of their eye situation and eyelid shape either, to be honest, all squinty-eyed with all that white showing.

But just one eye... Can you get photos?

Personally, just a guess, I'd think that this sounds like some variant on the deformation that causes crossbeak troubles, what with the skull growing wrong, too fast on one side, or too slow on the other, or both; maybe one side has stopped growing.

I did read another thread on this forum once where someone had a chick, some sort of Wyandotte or possibly Welsummer, something like that, which had one eye severely underdeveloped and failing to develop further, and that whole side of the skull was smaller. No follow-up so not sure how that one turned out. Crossbeak keepers have noted that it's a skull issue, not actually the beak "at fault" so to speak, but I'm just theorizing here that it may be the same or similar issue with yours.

The Australorps I've had (and I'm an Aussie so theoretically I would have better access to more breed-standard stock) had leucosis as a genetic issue but no skull development issues. Asides from that they were not noticeably weaker than any other breeds or mixes I've owned. To be fair I only bought some once, from one breeder, and that constitutes my whole experience with the breed. They'd been crossed too as far as I can tell, black with buff.

Either way, I would certainly not purchase that breed from that breeder ever again.

 

[RussianChickens]

Yes here's a pic. Its like chicken strabismus or how ever you spell it.