The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Leahs Mom]

Are you able to show a photo? Does she appear to be in pain at all?

 

[aoxa]

Are you able to show a photo? Does she appear to be in pain at all?

No signs of pain at all, which is really odd.. I'd expect her to scratch at it or something. She can't see out of it, because she cocks her head and looks at me with the good eye.

I'm at work now, but I will take a photo tonight and post it. Poor girl..

 

[Leahs Mom]

Check questions elsewhere but...

Is it possible that any of the chicken wire/hardware cloth used on internal frames/doors may have any of the cut wire ends sticking out that she may have gotten snagged on?

 

[delisha]

stress bars can come from many different things. Feathers reflect a bird's nutrition and general condition. If a bird is starving or has an imbalanced diet when she is producing new feathers, these feathers can have deformities called stress marks or hunger traces appearing as a line across the feather. These are weak points of the feathers. They can also have different colors that are generally not on that breed of bird. Like a white bird having a few red feathers..etc
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then for a bird, the feathers can be considered the window to its health. We can learn so much about a bird's state of health from simply observing the feathers. Some feather conditions are normal, and may result from the stages that occur during molting, and others may reflect malnutrition and certain disease states. So if you are worried that your birds are ill. Look at the feathers.

 

[delisha]

Quote: Aww..poor baby.
Birds can get along quite well with one eye. I had a bird a few years ago run into some trouble and lost an eye.

 

[aoxa]

MY Grandfather is AMAZINNNG! Check out my new nesting boxes!!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Be cool if they cold stay on wheels and you could move them wherever you want them easily Go grandpa!

 

[armorfirelady]

I love it when they moult..all those ugly beat up feathers come in so nice and bright. You can use it as a tool to make sure your husbandry practices are working. Those birds that are taking a long time to feather in are ones to watch for the next year and something to make note of in your records. You can examine old feathers and look for stress marks in your flock.

Good info. Thanks for posting the picture. I to love how they look after they are done molting. I notice on my PRs that the feathers come in a darker creep chestnut brown color. Their old feathers are so light in comparison. Like they bleached out in the sun. The old feathers look golden in color now. I don't notice the color change in the feathers on my white EE, BR or the BCMs Tho. Maybe next year when they have an adult molt. I do notice Sophie the BCM is getting more copper in her tho. My coop looks like they are having pillow fights. My mom & I keep wondering how they still have feathers on their body with the amount of feathers we see laying around

I love it when they moult..all those ugly beat up feathers come in so nice and bright. You can use it as a tool to make sure your husbandry practices are working. Those birds that are taking a long time to feather in are ones to watch for the next year and something to make note of in your records. You can examine old feathers and look for stress marks in your flock.

Can you explain more about looking at old feathers for stress marks?

not my image, but found with google images... shows the stress bars clearly. some feathers may break along the stress bars and have chunks missing from the sides or the shaft may bend or break easily also.

Thanks for the pic!! Now in addition to poop watchers we are going to have feather watchers as well lol.

My buckeye hen lost an eye. What the heck could have happened? Definitely either accident or attack... I have no idea. She is acting completely normal but her eye is uh... gone/broken... I shudder thinking about it. I'm going to put some actual antibiotic cream (made for eye infections in poultry) to prevent infection after I clean it out. Otherwise I'm sure she will be fine. She is eating/drinking/moving around okay. I have separated her because I don't want to draw attention to her eye in front of the other chickens and cause more issues. Poor thing. She was so beautiful too I had high hopes for showing her. At least she can still be used in breeding.

Poor girl. I wonder if she poked herself in the eye somehow? Just think you could make her an eye patch & she could be a pirate next Halloween

 

[aaggjg]

MY Grandfather is AMAZINNNG! Check out my new nesting boxes!!

Oooh I want one!!! Well a smaller version

 

[aoxa]

Oooh I want one!!! Well a smaller version

This is the image I gave him and said, just a lot more



Guys, thanks for the encouragement with my one-eyed hen. I'm sure she will be just fine. A little TLC and she'll be back with the flock. Eye patch - if I could without it being a danger I would