eye trouble

[Guest]

whilst in the loft last Saturday i noticed one of my youngsters had a slight swelling around its right eye a pick maybe and today another one had the same symptoms is this due to the heavy moult they are going through or is it one eye cold

[Guest]

I think it is something you need to get checked out, Lindsay.

 

I have had two young birds - one straight out the nest - which showed the same symptoms, started with favouring one eye, like a peck as you say, or a speck of dust. I've seen one eye cold a long time ago, and the bird's eye was 'running like a tap' with wet patches on the feathers (where the bird had been trying to 'clean' the eye). This wasn't one eye cold - the eye is moist, but doesn't run, the feathers are dry.

 

Well I bathed both bird's eye with cold tea on a cotton wool ball, seemed to respond ok, but the younger one that had the problem straight out of the nest, developed it again - went for a fly and came back with that eye streaming. I reckoned then it was infection rather than injury and used baytril once a day for three days and it responded to that treatment.

 

Now the reasons I advise you to have this checked out are:-

 

(1) 'Pigeon' talked about 'eye problems' coming home from the last race - asked for more info but didn't get it.

(2) A club mate noticed two birds favouring their eye on return from a training spin.

(3) Another club mate stopped racing for a week because of the same problem - he took telephone advice from Rod Adams on it, which seems to have done the trick.

 

There may be others with the same problem out there Lindsay, and not saying anything.

 

This may be something 'new' so get someone 'in the know' to look at it, or if you have a vet nearby who knows about birds, take them there. It sounds like conjuctivitis, (eye inflammation) but I don't know what causes it (virus, bacteria).

 

 

[Guest Doostalker]

Lindsay, I would agree with Bruno that it doesn't sound like one eye cold. There is a lot of fluid from the eye with oec and the feathers around the eye are very wet.

 

If it is a conjunctivitis (ie an inflammation of the conjunctiva which is the membrane surrounding the eye) as Bruno suggests then the reasons could be several, and in fact oec is a combinitaion of a conjunctivitis and sinusitis.

 

It could be a Chlamydia infection which can be treated with Baytril. But if there are no other symptoms, such as loss of condition, appetite etc, it may not be Chlamydia.

 

Recovery after treatment for chlamydia is good, but you can get it spreading to others in the flock. It would be best to isolate any showing symptoms and to seek advice from a vet.

 

Sorry to be so vague, but this really needs a vet with some avian experience to look at the birds so that you can be sure what it is. Otherwise anyone advising you on the forum is likely to be only making an educated guess. Best to be sure.

[Guest]

Thank you Doostalker and Bruno. Treated both with a used tea bag eye flush and gave them old hand one eye cold tablets yesterday and the diffrence today is fantastic,these are both young cocks moved into the widowhood nest boxes and i did wonder about the pick as they had settled into there own box.there was no fluid discharge prior to treatment and perhaps i am getting a little bit o/t at this stage of the moult,will monitor them rest of week.again thanks for the response.

[Silverdale Lofts]

Lindsay could be a number of things years ago we would have said one eye cold these days can be a number of things. Years ago  you used to get one pigeon with one eyed cold if more than one you can say its either ornithosis, mycoplasmasis , are the birds flying well around the loft and have you noticed sneezing check around the perches for yellow discharge.

[Guest]

birds flying all right when let out,boxes clean no signs of a yellow discharge,but why the right eye on both?like i said i am maybe a little bit over the top,just threw me thanks.

[jimmy white]

the one way to tell if its one eye cold or a pick in the eye if its one eyed cold youll see small bubbles on the bottom eye lid if it is one eyed cold its usually linked to respiratory probs..maybe just one or two birds will show the symtoms, but you can be sure its there in the loft, which means that other birds that dont have the symptoms, still can be effected i,e    the third eye lid not working as it should, which is a great disadvantage as this third eyelid  works as a kind of windscreen wiper etc.

[jimmy white]

p.s if you didnt want to use antibiotic [which at this stage i wouldnt be inclined to use] i would try cider vineger in the water for a week [a good strong dose] then see if theres any differance, i should imagine there would be

[Guest speckled]

dont no if i am right,but someone will soon tell me,if im not.When ya have one eye cold is it caused by Vitaminic deficency in the diet.? Vitiamin "A".Just wondering.Speckled

[Guest]

Very pleased your birds responded to your treatments, Lindsay.  

 

Problem with treating for two seperate ailments at once and getting a result is that we now don't know what was wrong with the birds in the first place.  

 

Very interesting thread. I think you're right about the vitamin deficiency, Speckled, remember reading about it a long time ago, but today, with the amount of 'stuff' that goes into the water or onto the feed, I'd be very surprised if that was the true cause. More overdose than deficiency.  ;D  Lack of Vit A would affect resistance to infection though (Wim Peters).

 

Jimmy's insight into the 'nicky' membrane takes me back to my own recent experience with my bird. Apparently cured, days / weeks later away for a fly - threw itself about the sky for an hour - comes back with that eye shut and soaking wet. So thought - inflamation or irritation here and the air movement in flight caused a major flare-up. Reckon if the membrane hadn't closed properly over the eye, air moving over and irritating an exposed and tender eye might account for the 'flood'. Yet it didn't down the bird?  :-/

 

And lastly, have a loan of Wim Peters' first book. pp84-86, ornithosis: a complex of diseases thought to be caused by chlamydia. Virus, but with bacterial characteristcs and responds to antibiotic treatments (there's always an exception to the rule  > ). But two other 'main' symptoms of ornithosis and missing here with Lindsay and myself - no 'runny noses' or dirty wattles, and the birds' droppings were normal.

 

 

 

[Guest Doostalker]

Speckled, I used to be told that one eyed cold was caused by vitamin deficiency, but vets will tell you now that it is caused by a combination of a sinusitis and conjunctivitis in the bird. The sinus infection is usually caused by Chlamydia or Mycoplasma. These can cause a secondary infection in the conjunctiva, which is the membrane liining the eyelid and then you have the basis of oec.

 

Some fanciers will treat with a variety of things some of which you can buy as so-called oec "cures." In my opinion none of them really work and if the illness disappears, it is beacause it has run it's course in that bird, but will probably appear in another. A visit to the vet for an appropriate antibiotic, administered at the correct dosage is the only real cure.

 

I am not saying that none of the "cures" we get advised about work, but I will say that you are better advised to contact a vet in most cases or get hold of a good avian veterinary book.

[Guest]

Learned yesterday that it was a Chlamydia infection that had stopped my club mate racing.  

 

Anyone know where the bird would be most likely to pick it up? As I said, my youngster was basically just moved from the parents at 4/5 weeks old. Parents & nest mate OK. Both youngsters were kept in a seperate section had no direct access to any others, except sharing one of the y/b drinkers.

[Guest Silverwings]

bruno , had a youngster return with this symptom ,tiny   bubbles in the lower eye ,was advised to  use columbine eye water , as i put the drops into the  eye the bubbles appeared to surge and i noticed a tiny black organism eject from the corner of the eye and out into the plumage, suggesting these could be oxygen bubbles ,i have seen the same thing happen several times since and managed to get one of these tiny leach like parasites onto some tissue , tried to get some information on these without any luck ? see if you can find any info on it ? may throw new light on yhe problem

[jimmy white]

how did you get on with that silver wings, hadnt heard of this, would be interested to find out what it was ?

[Guest Silverwings]

jimmy , had corespondence with a pigeon vet david palmer a few years ago ,said i should try and preserve one of these organisms in a solution and forward it to the natural history museum , and try and get them identified ? sounds like something new ! like evryone else i thourght  the so called usual cause of one eye cold was caused by a vitamin deficeincy ? my pigeons were not without vitamins , and why the bubbles ? and why only in one eye ? that particular hen had won the week before , the week following was a dificult race in hot weather  ,the hen homed late afternoon and had been down for water, recon this problem may be some kind of airborne or water living lavae ? and has  been around since one eye cold was invented just that nobody else is daft enough to put an eyesign glass to the eye to see what happens when the drops go in ( i realy must get a life ) read about something causing sheep and  cattle blindness a few yaers ago ,wondered if its the same thing ? never followed it up got sidetracked i allways do ! get on the case if you want to ...... by the way i met up with gez from b.ham seems a  decent lad with the right attitude speaks highly of you ,am impressed with the way you sorted him some decent birds ! nice one jimmy

[Guest]

The only thing which I think fits your description - and only up to a point - is mycoplasma.

 

They seem to be sort-of-jelly-like in that they can change shape.

 

Can't get a decent description of the organism anywhere so have no idea of colour or size, or where a bird might pick it up.

 

The alternative is a speck of dust or debris - but I'm puzzled as to how that would get into the birds eyes (1) when the nicky membrane is closed during flight and (2) on a regular basis, as you infer. Live near a mill of any sort with known reputation for causing particulate pollution problems?

 

[Guest Silverwings]

bruno ,have e mailed an avian research place in scotland see if they come up with anything the things are flat about half a millimetre across leach like with a jagged outer edge definatley seem like larvae of some kind , have moved quite a few of these now ! columbine eye water does it every time , suppose any antiseptic eye solution would

[deerrack]

New here, just wondering also about the eye problem I have just been reading about on this board. I have had recently a similar incident where 3 or 4 of my birds have develop a watery eye. Very wet, rubbing on shoulder, almost gluing the eye lids closed but this only appears on the birds right eye. I seperated the hens from the cocks this winter and it started almost immediately with the hens and then 2 or 3 cocks developed it. I thought that something had blown into their eyes until I noticed just the right eye. I read about the one-eye colds but the information didn't say it would only affect only their right eye. I started applying

Terramycin oitment and using Auromycin in the water. This seems to help in almost all of the birds. Has anyone else experienced this sort of problem.

[Taylorsloft]

i think this one got eye trouble its only got one

[Guest casbri]

on birds eyes i use golden eye ointment very good

[Guest IB]

Feels like a clip out of that old TV programme 'All our yesterdays'.  

 

Took me a couple of years to find out what was wrong with the bird with the streaming eye. Didn't really know if I was dealing with illness or injury, but had I just looked once at the normal eye instead of peering at the problem eye all the time I would have seen the difference right away.  Normal eye never stopped blinking, problem eye didn't blink once.

 

The bird was minus the nictitating membrane in the problem eye - the eyeball had no protection from air moving over it during flight, hence the streaming eye when the bird came back in. This cock was always scrapping from the minute he left the nest, and always coming off second best. Found him one time with that eye closed and blood congealed in one corner of it. Bathed that with cotton ball dipped in cold tea, and blood and what I took to be gunge (filmy stuff) came away -  gunge must have been what was left of the nicky membrane.  

 

[Guest strapper]

eye problems in several birds can indicate respitory problems,yet this may not be the case ,its only aimed at giving u some reasons for the birds problems.signs are wet eyes and sometimes they swell up...only on the one side(as in one eye colds)..hope this helps.