I am fairly certain that sadly our injured duck is blind in one eye. We've been keeping a close watch on it and wiping it etc but now 3wks past the attack it's gone cloudy. It was a victim of a coon attack and obviously it caught this eye somehow. The other injuries( extreme back wound and part of the tail yanked off) are healing well, it's becoming more stable and moving about better, it surprised me with getting out the pool on it's own today! I am trying to be consistant with the locations of feed/water and maintaining myself to the side it can see me as not to startle it.. for now they are kept penned(dog run 13ft by 7ft ? something close to) my eventual hope was to daytime free range however is this even safe with it having compromised sight? Any BTDT advice? thank you.
I have a little one-eyed call duck. I don't know if she was born like this or had an injury because she was rescued from a park lake. She does just fine. But she is kept with all my other small ducks in a covered pen to keep them predator safe.
My older Magpie hen Abby has cateracts in her left eye and cannot see at all in that one. She is also part blind in the other from an infection. She's doing fine, though, she seems to be able to get around. She's survived 5 years of living outside without being locked in the barn at night. I am sure yours will be OK. If she can see out of one eye then she'll be okay to let outside in the day time, but make sure she comes in at night.
I have cared for a number of ducks that hatched with only on eye - they did ok- it was amusing to watch them look up at the sky- and then turn their heads so they could look up with their good eye and actually see what was up there. Currently I have Stevie-Ray a little Runner that has been blind in both eyes since I hatched her. She is such a sweet little girl and wanders the yard with my other ducks. She follows their sound to find feed and water and has one particular drake that is never far from her side. I do need to pick her up at night and carry her into the night pens as she cant see to walk through the shed doorway. I have to pay extra attention to her in summer so she doent get dehydrated as she cant see where the shade is to sit in a cooler place. I really dont have much of an issue with predators here- so I dint have to provide extra protection from that aspect. I hope your duck manages to cope well with her sight impairment. They can adapt well and im sure in time she will learn to cope.
I have a 9 week old that is blind in 1 eye and can partly see out of the other, he has deformed eyes. He found it hard as a youngster but now hes older and knows his surroundings he can keep up a bit better. He runs with a slight tilt to his head and looking down so he can see where he is going and runs with his legs far apart to keep his balance, but once she stands still she wobbles a bit untill he finds his footing and looks where he is going.
Thank you everyone for your experiences. Yes, we absolutely will lock it up at night, as a matter of fact all of them will be. For now again there kept in a dog run for daytime and then locked up in predator proof housing. I wasn't sure whether it would ever be safe to free range 'lucky' but i am hopeful physically it will make a decent enough recovery to be able to free range with the flock later on ..
I had a blind D'Uccle hen (I know not a duck ) that went around so well you couldn't tell she was blind in both eyes unless you looked into her star-y glassy eyes. She was amazing!
