[nry]

Hi,
I recently replaced my old chickens with a couple of POL Columbian blacktails (I think), from a reputable supplier.
They have just started to lay, and then started to behave somewhat oddly a couple of days ago - one staying on the floor of the coupe rather than going out, and the other sort of blundering around, neither of them really eating much.
I spent a bit of time with them yesterday and have come to the conclusion that they have gone blind:
- You can walk right up to them and move your hand quickly up to their face without them freaking out,
-They will eat if you hold a handful of corn right under their nose, but if you then move that hand down and put the grain on the floor, they peck for it and frequently miss,
-they keep wandering into things!

(on the upside, their hearing is ok, as they look in the direction of clicked fingers etc)

I have now penned them rather than giving them free reign, with food scattered underfoot so at least they have a half chance of pecking and getting something.
I wonder if anyone else has any experience of this, or have I discovered a syndrome new to chickenhood?

Thanks in anticipation.

[joyfull]

Hi, sorry to hear about your girls. Are their eyes swollen red or puss filled?
I have come across this site that explains several eye disorders but not sure if yours is one of them. Have you contacted the supplier to ask them about it?


http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/PS031

Joy xx

[Foxy]

Have a close look at the iris, does the shape look odd? If there are no symptoms of infection the problem could be neurological, either due to injury or some other pathology

[nry]

Thanks for your suggestions Joy and Foxy,

That's the wierd thing, the eyes look totally clear and normal, and the birds are blinking as usual and do not appear to be in any discomfort.
They seem happy ennough in their reduced pen and are finding their way back into the coop of an evening, if not always up onto the perch.
Egg production has stopped, presumably with the trauma of it all.

I will speak to the breeder (who is also a friend) when they get back from holiday, but thought that I'd try the interweb as well.

In the meantime I am considering taping little white canes to their wings to see if that helps them get around any more easily!!

Thanks again for your advice and the useful website link,

N.

[iwantanallotment]

Bless, nry - can picture them with white canes sellotaped on 

I've never heard of it before, sorry. It's happened very suddenly, which can be a good thing. Fingers crossed.
Luckily the breeders are friends and will help you out, and you can also find if others of their birds have developed this, thereby narrowing it down.

In the meantime you're doing the right thing, making access to food and water easier for them.

Please do keep us posted?  And all the best.

Edit - just had a thought - one of my brother's dogs suddenly went blind overnight - I know it's a dog but still - with treatment he was right 2 days later.  Worth asking him anyway, and will do

Edit 2 - He just replied - it was a severe infection BEHIND the eyes.
Hope that's some help, if nowt else turns up.

[nry]

Right then, before I could get round to finding white canes of the right length, they appear to have got better!

Don't know what we did to cure them, they spent a few days in the reduced pen, with plenty of grain scattered all over the floor, so that if they pecked, they had half a chance of hitting something edible, and they seemed to be able to find their way in of a night. Other than that, we did make a bit of a cocktail in their drinking water [little bit of antibiotic powder - yellow stuff left over from treating a viral chest infection type thing in the last chickens -, a bit of 'poultry spice' (to give them back their zig-a-zig-ah!), and some brewers yeast tablets, all mixed up]

Don't know whether it was the potion, or just time, but one, and then the other seemed to be getting a bit of vision back, so we opened one end of the pen to see what happened.
They seemed to be able to find their way out and back in of a night, and now appear to be back to their normal 'chicken' selves; pootling around, scratching, pecking and all the rest of it.

Our breeder friend had never heard anything like it either, and she's been hanging round chickens for ever pretty much. Her only suggestion was that we might have put something in the chicken area (soil, plants, articles painted with old paint or somesuch) that they pecked and temporarily poisoned themselves - though we do not know what it could have been.

Anyway, they appear back to normal, (though not laying yet) and so we'll just have to wait and see.
Since no one seems to have come across it before, I thought that I might coin a name for it, I was thinking of "Random temporary chicken blindness syndrome", but that seems a bit obvious, so I'll let you know when I have thought of something more interesting.

Thanks for all suggestions,

Nick