Blind chicken and eye sore chicks please help :(

[Anonymous]

Badly need help....My father and I are starting to raise chicken (we're planning to have a poultry business). As a start, we bought a couple of chickens and chicks (3 chickens and 7 chicks). On the first weeks they seems to grow and live well but after 9 days, one of the chicken got one-eye blind and the 3 chicks got sore eyes (the eyes are full of things i dunno what they are called and its red) im so upset coz one of the chick that got affected was my fave. .

can u guys please help what are the things we need to do to get rid/ cure these things? What are the concerns we need to consider in raising our chickens and hens. help anyone?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

about the one eyed chicken. there are many possibilities how the chicken get blinded, maybe infection or a fight between other chickens that hits the eye. maybe u shud go to a vet for that, specially the chicks case coz it may lead to death (we dunno if the infection is contagious)

 

[Tim]

Hi there,

Sorry to hear about your chicks.

I cannot be sure without looking at the birds but eye problems usually involve infection that will cause nasal discharge too. The most common causes of eye problems are mites, respiritory infection and ear infection.

Normally, the discharge is white / fluid or clear with small bubbles in the corner of the eye with respiritory infection. My guess is (and it is a guess since it's impossible to say without examination) that it could be related to mites.

If so, I haven't treated chicks for mites before and would initially, bathe the eyes and wipe with cotton wool to remove as many as possible daily, then I would get advice from the vet for a suitable product. Ivermectin spot on might be used - but only a very small amount based on the size / weight of the birds.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.