Occular Marek's or just different?

[ILoveDaffy]

I noticed recently that my Blue Australorp cockerel, who is about 8 weeks old and vaccinated for Marek's disease, has a bit of an odd pupil. It doesn't look like the dramatic photos I found when researching, it just seems larger than the other chickens' pupils. Nobody has any other symptoms or looks ill. What are everyone else's thoughts?

 

[Eggcessive]

They appear dilated, and the iris border seems a bit raggedy and irregular, but basically producing a round pupil. I would try tomcheck if he can see or not, and keep an eye on his eyes for changes, such as a fading or gay iris. Most pictures of ocular Mareks tend to show smaller than normal and irregular pupils. Do you have any others with this? Have you added any new birds to the flock recently?

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is a link with picture of ocular Mareks that shows a slightly larger pupil than the pinpoint ones we see in most pictures:
https://en.aviagen.com/assets/Tech_...ticles/English/MareksDiseaseVirus-2017-EN.pdf

 

[ILoveDaffy]

They appear dilated, and the iris border seems a bit raggedy and irregular, but basically producing a round pupil. I would try tomcheck if he can see or not, and keep an eye on his eyes for changes, such as a fading or gay iris. Most pictures of ocular Mareks tend to show smaller than normal and irregular pupils. Do you have any others with this? Have you added any new birds to the flock recently?

This is a whole new flock, no additions and all vaccinated. The others look perfectly normal and nobody has any weird symptoms that I've noticed, just this cockerel's large pupils. He seems to be able to see well, eats, drinks and behaves normally.

 

[Eggcessive]

I really hope that it is not ocular Mareks. The vaccine can help, but won’t completely prevent the disease. Some chickens may have the ocular form and no other symptoms. Normally, the pupil should have smooth rims. Here in the this picture the normal pupil on the right has a smooth sharp appearance.

 

[ILoveDaffy]

I really hope that it is not ocular Mareks. The vaccine can help, but won’t completely prevent the disease. Some chickens may have the ocular form and no other symptoms. Normally, the pupil should have smooth rims. Here in the this picture the normal pupil on the right has a smooth sharp appearance.
View attachment 4135091

That was my concern. It isn't perfectly even, but it's not small or terribly abnormally shaped. If it's Marek's, it's very subtle in his eye and the rest of the flock seems totally fine. Barnevelder eye versus the cockerel.

 

[ILoveDaffy]

I haven't seen a picture of an eye affected by ocular Marek's that looks like what his eye does, but I have no idea what else would cause it to look this way.