Need help figuring out what caused eye to turn grey

[Nksg75]

Good morning,
i have a 2 year old hen who started to act depressed about 3 weeks ago. I originally thought the girl may be starting to molt until I slowly started to notice she was being picked on a whole lot. She started to lose some weight, so I made sure she had time away from the others to eat.
a few night ago, I was trying to figure out why she just didn’t look like she was improving, only to notice that she literally is blind in one of her eyes. Her eye has taken almost a blue/grey color .
The 3 things I know can cause blindness is

1. Ocular maraks
2. Ammonia toxicity
3. Trauma to the eye itself

after looking at the pictures I will post of her eye, does anyone have any advice on how to figure out which one it could be?

She is the only one with the symptoms of the eye issue.
I do have all my chickens vaccinated for mereks, however I realize it’s not a guarantee.

The Bad eye:

Her good eye:

 

[ChickenFeeds]

I don’t know what it could be, but we have a hen that also got a bad eye. We actually don’t know if she was just born with it or if she got it later, but she is doing fine so we just left it. If we look closely at her eye, we can kind of see the pupil underneath. It’s a little strange because your chicken only has the whitish-blue on her pupil. I’ve only seen it on the whole eye.

 

[ChickenFeeds]

If there is no blood and she seems to be doing OK, then I would suggest keeping her in the coop, but if she is getting picked on too much, or if there’s ever any blood, I would suggest you separate her.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your blind chicken. Ammonia toxicity is a cause of corneal ulcers and blindness, but it probably would affect both eyes. Good ventilation and changing soiled bedding should prevent that so it would not be likely. To me she may have a cataract or has had an infection in the eye. Has she ever had signs of a respiratory disease in the past? The sunken eye appearance can also be a sign. Those could cause it. A vitamin A deficiency is another cause of blindness. Past exposure to the virus avian encephalomyelitis as a young chick is another possible cause. I have had a chicken blind in one eye get along pretty well, as long as she was familiar with the coop and where her food/water was.

 

[-Chanticleer-]

Good morning,
i have a 2 year old hen who started to act depressed about 3 weeks ago. I originally thought the girl may be starting to molt until I slowly started to notice she was being picked on a whole lot. She started to lose some weight, so I made sure she had time away from the others to eat.
a few night ago, I was trying to figure out why she just didn’t look like she was improving, only to notice that she literally is blind in one of her eyes. Her eye has taken almost a blue/grey color .
The 3 things I know can cause blindness is

1. Ocular maraks
2. Ammonia toxicity
3. Trauma to the eye itself

after looking at the pictures I will post of her eye, does anyone have any advice on how to figure out which one it could be?

She is the only one with the symptoms of the eye issue.
I do have all my chickens vaccinated for mereks, however I realize it’s not a guarantee.

The Bad eye:

View attachment 3683449View attachment 3683450

Her good eye:
View attachment 3683456

Looks like mareks. Shine a light into the good eye and see if it dilates. But from the look of the good eye and the fact that it’s only the Iris on the bad eye is all pointing to mareks.

 

[Eggcessive]

Mareks (the ocular form) usually seems to cause a small irregular pupil with faded iris color. The OP’s hen has a normal colored iris and a dilated pupil, which indicates being open wide to let in more light, common in cataracts. I’m not an expert, but there are many pictures online to compare.

 

[coach723]

It looks more like a cataract to me also, not the kind of changes I have seen in Marek's birds. In my birds with Marek's the pupil tends to shrink and look pinched rather than dilated, and it is usually not round, but rather odd shaped. There are multiple causes of cataracts, trauma can be one. I would keep an eye on her, if she's getting bullied then you may need to separate her with only a couple of other birds that don't. And you may want to monitor her weight, make sure she's finding and getting access to adequate feed.

 

[Nksg75]

Ok, thank you all for the suggestions. Yes i also noticed that sunken in eye area as well. However if I can remember correctly, she has been like that for as long as I can remember. As far as ammonia toxic goes, I am going to say probably not. Here in south texas I have more of an open coop.(2 sides completely open with hardware cloth) also large vent spaces up top on the 2 sides that are covered.
The chickens free range dawn to dusk, and this one stopped leaving the coop altogether about 3 weeks ago. Granted she wasn’t much of a forager to begin with, but now won’t leave the coop at all.
i cant be sure if she had a respiratory issue prior to this, however if she did, I was unaware of it.
i will make sure she has more time in a safe area with plenty of food daily and see if that helps.
after looking in her other eye closely today, it looks like she may be developing a small spec of grey area in her good eye, just a tiny spec right in the center of her pupil. I will try to get a decent pic of her good eye tomorrow