Mycoplasmal Conjunctivitis - Eye Disease In Finches

About a month ago, I sw a sick House Sparrow that had some kind of booger on his eye. I got shots of it, but deleted them cause it was just too gross. Poor bird.

A couple weeks ago, I saw one of my American Gold Finch visitors had an eye problem, so I did some Googleing and found out it is an eye disease in birds and it's spreading. It's contagious but the disease itself doesn't kill the bird. It attacks the lungs and eye's, so they are stressed all the time, having a hard time breathing, and they eventually go blind. And that kills the bird.

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a survey going now and wants people to sign up to report the spread of this disease. It's free and you sign in on their sight, give your name and address, then they send you some paper material to fill out and send back to report your sightings. If you have sick birds, you might want to sign up so you can help in the survey. It's pretty painless and might do some good. This particular disease is attacking American Goldfinches and House Finches right now, and there is no cure.

Here's what it looks like.

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Thank you for the info-I will keep my eyes out-hopefully I don't see any.

According to the data on the Cornell sight, it hasn't gotten to the West coast yet. It started in Maryland and Virginia in 1993-1994 and has spread to Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and the Dakotas already.

That's absolutely horrible, as a bird owner, it makes more sensitive to things like this. I hate hearing or seeing animals suffer, but birds for me are worse.

I'm the same way Adi. It's heartbreaking to see this little beauty suffering like this. There's really nothing to be done though. The information says the disease can be treated, but there is no data on whether the bird is still contagious and can live longer to infect more birds. It's not recommended to treat them.

canonloader wrote in post #3254587
. It's heartbreaking to see this little beauty suffering like this. There's really nothing to be done though. The information says the disease can be treated, but there is no data on whether the bird is still contagious and can live longer to infect more birds. It's not recommended to treat them.

That's crap !

If I could think of a way to catch her, I'd try anyway.

That is some bad crap Mitch.

It's terrible. A few years ago it was on the rise, but with the spreading of the word to people who have feeders out, it is now on the wane but still out there. All you have to do is keep your feeders clean. If you see a bird like this at your feeders, your supposed to wash them with a 10% bleach solution and make sure there is no collection of dropping under the feeders, which I have done. Pretty simple.

thanks for the information! I had a finch like this right after we moved to this house last November. Haven't seen any with it since then, but if I do, I'll know how to handle the feeders.

canonloader wrote in post #3254755
It's terrible. A few years ago it was on the rise, but with the spreading of the word to people who have feeders out, it is now on the wane but still out there. All you have to do is keep your feeders clean. If you see a bird like this at your feeders, your supposed to wash them with a 10% bleach solution and make sure there is no collection of dropping under the feeders, which I have done. Pretty simple.

Good information Mitch and similar to what I was told last Spring when I noticed a House Finch with strange looking eyes...Nothing like this though..and I have not seen anything like it since.

Thanks for looking Nancy and Gary. What first alerted me, was the same disease in a House Sparrow and I have found no mention of the disease in them yet. I only saw him for a few days and not since then. And now I see this goldfinch has it, so I've cleaned all my feeders. It's no fun seeing the little guys struggle to breathe, let alone see.

Poor little thing, that looks nasty... Thanks for the information though, I have not seen that myself...

Downy, so far, this disease hasn't reached past Western Iowa and the Dakotas. It is supposed to attack goldfinces and house finches, but I have only seen the one goldfinch and one house sparrow with it. Which is 2 too many.

Are you a participant in the Cornell study? http://www.birds.corne​ll.edu/hofi/