Unusual Behavior

[Nagdabit]

We have an interesting situation with our Florida Fancy hen that we haven't experienced before. She is not displaying the classic sick finch symptoms.(not fluffed at all, not overly lethargic, not gaunt looking) While she does spend the better part of the day sitting in her nest, she is on eggs so that isn't what overly concerns me. It's her behavior while in the nest. She sits in her nest with her eyes closed and does kind of a jerky motion with her head, almost like she is having a neck spasm of some sort. The jerky motion isn't consistent, only every now and then, but she keeps her eyes closed while she does it,so it looks almost like she's in some kind of dream / REM state.

She been doing this for three or four days so it is a new behavior. We've had her for about 6 or 7 months and this is the first time she demonstrated any type of unusual behavior. For a day or two prior to she seemed to be having problems with her left eye, keeping it closed for extended periods of time. Even when she was trying to move about in the cage.

She has maintained an excellent appetite, and is relatively active. I'm probably going to pull her eggs (not viable anyway) and then we'll see if she's even more active. But we've never had a bird behave in this manner before and aren't really sure what to do for her. Tried a couple of doses of Guardian angel and didn't see any improvement. Didn't want to blindly treat with antibiotics but I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't have an infection in her eye of some sort?

Thought I'd bounce her condition past you folks to see if anyone has had a bird behave in such a way and can offer some suggestions on what we can do for her?

Thanks
Rory and Sherry

[lovemyfinch]

I have never seen this before, but I am hoping that her odd behaviour does end shortly.

[cindy]

I have seen birds do this sort of "trance" like state while sitting, but since she is having trouble with her eye I'm not sure what to advise you to do. Could she have injured herself? Flown into something or another bird did this? Is there any kind of irritation that you can see?

I used to she this trance like almost half asleep jerky motion in a few birds (mostly zebras) that were sitting. I would see the head back and sway a little and worry that they were not eating enough and just sitting. It isn't you typical sitting position.

If you pull her eggs, maybe rest her for awhile. Her eye has me stumped.

[nixity]

Usually eye infections aren't hard to spot because they display symptoms that are visible to the naked eye.
There will usually be a lot of drainage, you'll see the bird continuously rubbing its eye on perches, and the eye might even swell completely shut.

If you don't see any unusual mucous or other goop coming from her eye, and she's not really bothered by it to the point that she's rubbing it all the time, then I would maybe just observe her over the next few days and see if anything changes or gets worse?

I agree - I wouldn't jump to abx at this point..

PS: I had a dilute male scratch his eye on something, so for about a week he was rubbing it, closing it, etc., because it was irritated - but it wasn't an infection. So there's always that possibility too.
In these cases you can sometimes see the actual scratch or damage to the cornea, though it could also be one of the eyelids that's bothering them.

[Nagdabit]

Thanks for the responses everyone. Pulled the eggs this morning and she definitely has been more active. Haven't noticed any twitching at all, but she's still closing her left eye here and there. It's actually kind of freaky cause being a predominately white finch, her eyelid is translucent, so as she flies around with the one eye closed, it looks like she has a black eye.

Haven't noticed any drainage, swelling or the like, that's why we're stumped. I'm guessing it just got scratched or irritated and the odd behavior was a totally separate thing.

Or... was justing watching her now and she was doing the pirate thing with her left eye. Then she stopped, brought her foot up and scratched at the area and now the eye is open. There doesn't appear to be any goopage that would cause it to stick shut. Could she have some kind of a neurological thing that causing the twitch and her eye to stay shut? She doesn't appear to be "sick" in any other way, but she does seem tentative making her way around the cage. Very deliberate in her flight and when she hops from perch to perch.

We've had hens before that had infections in their brain area, but that was a couple of years ago. And their symptoms don't match up with little Miss Calypso's. On the other hand I really don't want to wait until it's to late to do something Aaaauuuggghhh!

Anybody have any suggestions on what we can give her as a proactive boost? Like I mentioned earlier, we tried Guardian Angel for 3 or 4 days and didn't notice any changes. After that we switched to feather fast cause she has a small spot on her back that another hen in the cage is constantly picking at on her. Really hate this feeling of helplessness, and just not knowing what to do for her.

[cindy]

Could she possibly injured the eye buy flying into something and maybe scratched her eye a little. It may be irritating her. Is there a way to look closer at the eye? If you scratch your cornea it does feel irrtated and you want to rub it.

I know my puppy scratched her cornea playing, she kept rubbing at it with her paw like something was bothering her. Our vet put drops in her eye to see if she did tear it. She did and we were given drops to help heal it and fight an infection from starting.

[monotwine]

Hope your hen comes right soonest.

Only comment is that I have a zebra hen that displays similar eye problems. One / sometimes both eyes closed but no visual infection. She does scratch and preen more often at the same time. She usually then has the start of a low grade feather mite infection. I just dose her for mites and within a few days she is right as rain.

May or may not be similar to your hen.