Pullet with Foamy Eyes

[MickWithChicks]

I was just checking on the grow out pen before locking up for the night and noticed one of my Barnevelder pullets was standing in the corner with her eyes closed. On closer inspection, her eyes are quite foamy.

She's still feisty, standing, tail up, but doesn't seem to be able to see real well. She's otherwise got good colour.

She isn't sneezing or coughing and there's no discharge from anything except her eyes.

The weather was a maximum of 27C (80F), so it wasn't too hot. They have fresh water and food, always.

Their food is a good mix of pellets and grain with 17% protein and no calcium.

She's about 10 weeks old.

I've separated her from the flock and given her Avi-Vital and Minerals in her water. As I didn't notice until the sun was setting, she's unlikely to touch tonight unless I force her.

Any advice on what it could be would be appreciated. After reading some comments in the worst mistakes thread, I figured I'd ask straight away this time and see if any of you recognised the symptoms / could give advice.

Edit: possibly Coryza. Reached out to vet tonight. Hopefully get in to see tomorrow and figure it out. No others showing symptoms, but if Coryza, it's unlikely it hasn't spread. Ugh.

 

[Cragg Klefor]

I was just checking on the grow out pen before locking up for the night and noticed one of my Barnevelder pullets was standing in the corner with her eyes closed. On closer inspection, her eyes are quite foamy.

She's still feisty, standing, tail up, but doesn't seem to be able to see real well. She's otherwise got good colour.

She isn't sneezing or coughing and there's no discharge from anything except her eyes.

The weather was a maximum of 27C (80F), so it wasn't too hot. They have fresh water and food, always.

Their food is a good mix of pellets and grain with 17% protein and no calcium.

She's about 10 weeks old.

I've separated her from the flock and given her Avi-Vital and Minerals in her water. As I didn't notice until the sun was setting, she's unlikely to touch tonight unless I force her.

Any advice on what it could be would be appreciated. After reading some comments in the worst mistakes thread, I figured I'd ask straight away this time and see if any of you recognised the symptoms / could give advice.

Edit: possibly Coryza. Reached out to vet tonight. Hopefully get in to see tomorrow and figure it out. No others showing symptoms, but if Coryza, it's unlikely it hasn't spread. Ugh.

Hi MickWithChicks,
Sorry about the possibility of Coryza...reading through your post it did sound like one of those diseases though.
It would be best to get a proper diagnosis from the vet to enable management of your flock going forward.
It would be great if you could let us know how it goes!
Good luck!

 

[dawg53]

More like MG and not Coryza unless you smell a bad odor around her head. I'd check for an environmental issue first though ie; soiled bedding causing ammonia fumes with not enough ventilation, pesticide use, pollen etc...
A vet can determine if it's a respiratory disease.

 

[Eggcessive]

Tiamulin or Denagard, and tylosin (Tylan) are two of the antibiotics available through your vet to treat symptoms of mycoplasma gallisepticum or MG. MG is a chronic respiratory disease which is passed from a carrier bird, and may also be passed through hatching eggs. Do you have older chickens or poultry who have had a respiratory disease or infection? Here is some reading about MG:

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/disea...tion-mg-chronic-respiratory-disease-chickens/

http://extension.umd.edu/sites/exte... Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) Infecti....pdf

 

[MickWithChicks]

More like MG and not Coryza unless you smell a bad odor around her head. I'd check for an environmental issue first though ie; soiled bedding causing ammonia fumes with not enough ventilation, pesticide use, pollen etc...
A vet can determine if it's a respiratory disease.

There's no bad odour around her head, so maybe MG then.

I never use pesticides. There's HEAPS of pollen at the moment and it's really affecting my wife and sons hay-fever (thankfully I don't suffer hay-fever!).

There's heaps of ventilation. We have pretty good weather year-round, so everything is very much open air. I'll change all the bedding regardless just in case. There are still 10 young chickens with mumma hen sleeping in a nesting box, and while the bedding looks OK, it's probably not. They're starting to overflow from the box now and I'm waiting for mumma hen to show them how to roost.

Tiamulin or Denagard, and tylosin (Tylan) are two of the antibiotics available through your vet to treat symptoms of mycoplasma gallisepticum or MG. MG is a chronic respiratory disease which is passed from a carrier bird, and may also be passed through hatching eggs. Do you have older chickens or poultry who have had a respiratory disease or infection? Here is some reading about MG:

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/disea...tion-mg-chronic-respiratory-disease-chickens/

http://extension.umd.edu/sites/extension.umd.edu/files/_docs/programs/poultry/FS-1008 Recognizing and Preventing Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) Infecti....pdf

Thanks for the info on treatments, I'll see if I can source some today. As antibiotics are only sold via vet prescription here, I'll have to wait until I talk to my vet.

None of my poultry have had a respiratory disease or infection as far as I'm aware. I did have 4 chickens wander into my yard 6 months ago and took them in. I went through the proper quarantine process and they showed no signs of illness during that process. They've shown no signs of illness since.

The eggs that these chicks hatched from were purchased from a backyard breeder, so it could have been passed down from the parents. Also, we get a lot of wild birds in the area that could have potentially carried the disease in.

I'm hoping it's just an infection rather than disease, but I'll have to wait and see.

 

[Eggcessive]

Hopefully, she will be okay, and no others will become ill. Make sure that she gets plenty of water to drink and eat, since her eyes being foamy will make it hard to see food and water. You may want to add some water to a small bowl of her feed to make it watery, and show her often where it is. Let us know how she gets along.

 

[MickWithChicks]

Thanks @Eggcessive! She's definitely having trouble seeing her feed/water, so I've been trying to show her where it is. I've done the water + feed thing with Weetbix and the grain/pellet mix and will add some good greek yoghurt to the mix this afternoon.

The vets diagnosis is MG and he has prescribed tetracycline to the whole flock for 10 days. He said the MG has likely been dormant in the entire flock for some time, but now that there's clinical signs to treat them all.

Withholding period for eggs is 10 days after the treatment is complete. I normally deworm the whole flock in January, April, July, and October anyway. So I'll do the lot while under a withholding period. I've been advised this won't impact the tetracycline treatment.

 

[dawg53]

I was hoping it wasnt MG, but in the back of mind I knew it was. Hopefully the tetracycline will do its job for you.
Keep in mind that MG never goes away and birds will be carriers for life. Stress can bring out symptoms like you're seeing in your pullet. Good luck.

 

[Eggcessive]

That you for the update, and sorry that it appears it is MG. Tetracycline is one of several drugs used in treatment, but they need to drink a normal amount of the treated water. MG can be common in a lot of backyard flocks and in wild birds. Some day when all of these chickens are gone, hopefully, many years from now, you may get new baby chicks from a hatchery severalmweeks later to start a new flock without any worry of MG. It only survives on surfaces, equipment, and shoes for about 3 days once the chickens and any other poutry are gone.

 

[MickWithChicks]

Thanks @dawg53 and @Eggcessive

The initial diagnosis was made over the phone, but as I needed to go to the vet to pickup the treatment anyway, I had her checked over properly.

It appears to actually be Psittacosis (aka Chlamydiosis), not MG. It's spread through wild birds and common in backyard flocks in my area. They've all now been prescribed with Psittavet (Doxycycline).