Is this ocular Marek’s

[LCsAChickenLover]

..or just some Halloween paranoia? She’s acting totally fine, but her left eye caught my attention, as it looks more dilated than her right side and seems to have a grayish ring around pupil. Cream legbar, about 1.5yrs

First two pics are her left side, the eye in question
Last pic is right side, no gray ring that I can see

 

[azygous]

The pupil in the left eye looks somewhat diminished compared to the right, but the light may have been brighter causing it to contract. You need to look carefully at both eyes and compare the iris color and the pupils.

Ocular Marek's causes the iris color to fade and appear muddy. The pupil will be smaller and irregular shaped. It not clear in the photos if these markers are present.

An extreme closeup photo may help if you still can't decide.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

That looks pretty similar to the examples of ocular Marek’s I’ve seen. A friend of mine has a hen with the same eye and he believes it’s ocular Marek’s.

 

[LCsAChickenLover]

The pupil in the left eye looks somewhat diminished compared to the right, but the light may have been brighter causing it to contract. You need to look carefully at both eyes and compare the iris color and the pupils.

Ocular Marek's causes the iris color to fade and appear muddy. The pupil will be smaller and irregular shaped. It not clear in the photos if these markers are present.

An extreme closeup photo may help if you still can't decide.

Thank you for the reply. I’ll keep an eye on her and hopefully I can snap a better pic with better lighting. It was overcast yesterday when I noticed that one eye was dilated and the other looked almost pin point. Thanks again

 

[LCsAChickenLover]

That looks pretty similar to the examples of ocular Marek’s I’ve seen. A friend of mine has a hen with the same eye and he believes it’s ocular Marek’s.

Thank you for reply. What a beautiful bird! When I zoom in on your friends bird, I do see the pupil looks similar to my gal’s. I lightened/edited a pic from yesterday, from the front view, if you zoom in, I feel like the pupil size difference is noticeable.
At any rate, I’ll be keeping an eye on her and doing lots of reading on how I should move forward with flock health and maintenance. Ugh

 

[Eggcessive]

The eye signs could be from ocular Mareks. The only way to know for sure would be to get a PCR test from a lab such as RAL, or perhaps one in California. The most common test is done with a necropsy after death plus testing of tumor tissue or feather shafts. Here is a link for RAL and Mareks blood testing which is collected at home by trimming a toenail:
https://www.vetdna.com/application/forms/aviansubmittalform.pdf

Cream leg bars have become very popular in the last 12 years, and there have been a lot of threads on that breed BYC about Mareks, many early ones coming from an expensive hatchery. I do know the same thing happened with some Swedish Flower Hens when I first joined this site, many showing up with Mareks. It could be because of a small gene pool in the beginning after those breeds were brought here to the US. Silkies, the same. Mareks is pretty much everywhere in the world. I have been lucky not to have seen a case yet. Some flocks may have only the ocular form of Mareks, while some have other strains.

 

[LCsAChickenLover]

The eye signs could be from ocular Mareks. The only way to know for sure would be to get a PCR test from a lab such as RAL, or perhaps one in California. The most common test is done with a necropsy after death plus testing of tumor tissue or feather shafts. Here is a link for RAL and Mareks blood testing which is collected at home by trimming a toenail:
https://www.vetdna.com/application/forms/aviansubmittalform.pdf

Cream leg bars have become very popular in the last 12 years, and there have been a lot of threads on that breed BYC about Mareks, many early ones coming from expensive hatchery. I do know the same thing happened with some Swedish Flower Hens when I first joined this site, many showing up with Mareks. It could be because of a small gene pool in the beginning after those breeds were brought her. Silkies, the same. Mareks is pretty much everywhere in the world. I have been lucky not to have seen a case yet. Some flocks may have only the ocular form of Mareks, while some have other strains.

Thank you for the testing info, the blood test will most likely be my next step. I did notice that legbars had seemed to pop up in more than one post when I searched on the subject. Thank you again for the response