Zebra chicks with waterbags over eyes

[MariusStegmann]

I have been trying to breed a phao zebra for a while now. I closest that I got to a phao is a bird with a brown head and a whitish body. I am a bit despondant, because I hit a spot of bother. I have had 3 nest of zebra babies, where some of the chicks have waterbags over the eyes. They end up blind. I thought that it was the one-eye cold virus and treated the birds for that. Now I think that it is a genetic weakness in the isabella/florida fancy stock that I have. I bought new black-breasted males, thinking that I need new blood. But the chicks of one of the new males and one of my isabella hens just fleched. Some of them are also abnormal. The one has waterbags on the side of the eye, the other has a waterbag over the one eye. I obviously have to destroy these afflicted birds and it hurts to have to do it. I obviously have to get rid of the birds that produce the abnormal chicks. The strange thing is that I got no abnormal chicks in 2010. I got the first 2 abnormal chicks in November 2011. If it is a genetic weakness, surely it the same parents should have given me bad chicks from the begining. Could it be a virus or something? I bought a isabella male before the troubles started that I later found out was blind. It never bred, but it could have brought a virus to my birds. Can anyone give me advice on this?

[MariusStegmann]

I forgot to mention that this abnormality only occurs with the birds that have the isabella / florida fancy strain. My penguins, pieds and black cheeks are totally unaffected. I don't know if the problem also occurs with the Aussie zebra's. I read on the internet that the isabella strain has a propensity to blindness. I think that it would be more than likely the european stock.

Here are some photo's of the afflicted birds:

Both eyes affected.jpg

Water blister below finger.jpg

Water blister behind 1 eye.jpg

[Diane]

Never seen anything like that before.

[Dimar]

Hi Marius,
the chick in the pictures is neither Isabel nor Florida Fancy, it's a Fawn Cheek.
Blindness is a genetic defect linked to the Cheek mutation (Cheek is not present in Australia), despite the efforts of the breeders all the Cheeks at some point do produce blind chicks (sometime only one eyes is affected and the chick can survive). Twenty years ago the defect was present in about half of the Cheek offsprings, nowadays is better, but it still seems quite random. Some birds produce two or three nests of healthy chicks and suddenly some blind chicks, other birds will just throw numbers of blind chicks. If you really want to breed Cheeks you must face this problem

ciao
Dimar

[MariusStegmann]

Thanks Dimar

I think that the foundation foundation female that all the affected birds derive out, could be decribed as Fawn cheeked.

These are the parent stock.

Parents.jpg

These two males, (Florida Fancies, I think) bred out of the above parents had 2 siblings with huge water blisters were the eyes should have been.

FF males.jpg

This male had 2 siblings with the abnormality.

Youngster.jpg

The female on the left had abnormal chicks and the female on the right, had abnormal siblings.

Females.jpg

[Dimar]

Hi Marius,
yes the founding hen looks like a Fawn Cheek or even like an Isabel Fawn Cheek. The founding male looks like a Phaeo (Isabel+Blackbreast).
Cheek mutation is dominant and so it's easy to eradicate from a strain (there are no splits for Cheek), but when mixed with Isabel it can be tricky to tell apart Isabel from FC and Isabel FC. You can recognize the FC hens and Isabel FC hens by the brown or light brown cheek patches (as in the founding hen), as regards the males I added some note to you pic, the one in background is FC, the other one I'm not sure. Who are the parents of the last male you posted? In the last pic, hen on the left is a FC (or Isabel FC), hen on the right is not FC (you can use her in your Isabel strain).



ciao
Dimar

[MariusStegmann]

Hi Dimar

The parents of the male with the brown head looks like this:

Parents1.jpg

Parents2.jpg

The female is a beautiful bird. The feathers are very smooth and the colour of underparts and cheeks is a ochre / reddish brown.

[Dimar]

Hi Marius,
I think the father is a Fawn Blackbreast split Isabel, while the female is an Isabel Blackbreast FC.
When there's also Blackbreast mixed in it's even more tricky to detect Cheek, because Isabel BB hens can have light brown cheek patches (just like Isabel FC hens). White splashes on the underparts is another spotting sign of Cheek mutation (nothing to do with Pied).

ciao
Dimar

[MariusStegmann]

Hi Dimar

Thanx, what would the male with the brown head be? He has white oround the beak. The light brown cheek patches goes right over his head. I thought that a totally brown bird is called a phao. I suppose I was trying to breed a orange breasted phao. He has orange and white markings on the back.

Cheers Marius

[Dimar]

Hi Marius,
it looks like an Isabel Blackbreast FC (that's why I asked who the parents were).

If you want to get rid of Cheek from your flock, look carefully for all the spotting signs said before... (good luck!)

ciao
Dimar