One of my EE chicks just hatched with NO eyes :(

I’m having a very successful hatch so far. Everything was going great, only 12 more eggs to go, than BOOM – EE #7 finished hatching, a perfect little chipmunk except for the fact it has no eyes. I’m a little horrified to be perfectly honest. What could have caused this?

I feel so bad for the little guy but I don’t have the extra time to spend on an extremely “special needs” chick, nor do I really want too. I feel crappy for even typing that but there it is. I will be culling it shortly, once I work up the nerve. Sigh...

Anyone else ever experience a deformity like this?

I just had a duck last week hatch with no eyes either. Guessing it is either a genetic flaw or just an incubation issue? I culled it as well.

We do have a buff Orpington hen that was born with eyes but is blind, she is an amazing hen. We have had her for 4 years now, she was one of my daughter's first chicks she ever hatched, and she does surprisingly well. We have to help her if we change the water font in the summer from the big font to the automatic bowl, but once she gets it figured out she does well. We also don't breed her or ever move her from the coop, she does go out into the run and likes to sleep in the doorway with the wind on her face.

I also had a chick hatch that had no eyes and had to cull it, very strange indeed.

Sorry you have to deal with that But, like any birth there is always the odds that some are going to turn out, well, weird. Personally I wouldn't worry unless it happens again.

I had 2 weird chicks hatch this year too. One had half a skull missing so only one eye and half a head. Up and doing what all the other chicks were doing but because of it missing half it's head it was severely crossed beaked and had to be put down immediately. A few weeks later I had one little dude hatch with the entire top part of his skull missing so his brain was bare. He could only move around in circles on his side and had to be dispatched immediately too. I have hatche thousands of chicks and never had anything like these two before. Has been a strange year for sure. Both chicks were entirely unrealted in breed and where the eggs came from so I will never know why.

I wonder if it is the year for the blind/missing-missing-head parts for chicks. I too have hatched hundreds of chicks over the years. This year I have had a total of five chicks in three different incubations that were blind. Looked great until about the 4th day, when I noticed they were smaller, and when I picked them up, they didn't even move away. I did things and figured out they were blind, I disptached them. This was the last three hatches, one in one hatch and two in two different hatches. No clue why, but the same breed for all of them and other hatches from this breed were just fine, just the last three hatches only. It is weird, but guess it is just the way it goes sometimes. Have a great day, CynthiaM.

Wow, I had no idea this kind of thing was so commonplace, at least this year anyway. Very strange and sad. I wonder if it has something to do with fluctuating R.H.? We’ve certainly had that here on the prairies.

Thanks for sharing about your blind hen Hidden. She sounds like quite a character. I’m always especially touched by stories about animals with visual disabilities because it strikes so close to home. Both my mother and brother have degenerative eye disease. I think this is why my little chick born without eyes hit me so hard.

Anyhoo, I’m absolutely thrilled to have 35 healthy chicks.