Hello! I've been looking and looking on here over the last few days refreshing myself on everything that can go wrong respiratory-wise, but all I can come up with is gapeworm. I'm hoping someone with experience in this can give me some clarification! Seven-month-old mixed breed pullet, adopted from the neighbor, I noticed she had audible breathing when she was quite young, 4 months maybe, but only noticed it when she was nervous at first, so I thought it was maybe exertion, or the intense heat... I adopted her 2 months ago since she lived at my house anyway, rough breathing still noticeable when nervous, but now that the weather has turned cold her breathing suddenly in one day turned horrendous! Can gapeworms take four months plus to kill a bird??
Comb and wattles look a perfect red, feathers are glorious, no discharge from eyes or nose or beak or anything that I can tell, eating very well, moving around very spryly, but it sounds like she's gonna die of lack of oxygen if I don't figure this out! I just finished 5 days on fenbendazole horse wormer because that's all the feed store had in stock, put her on an antibiotic that I successfully used before for suspected mycoplasma, but she's not gotten any better and has no symptoms of a respiratory infection anyway.
So far no symptoms in any of my other birds. I just ordered some Valbazen but hoping for confirmation on dosage?? Unless it's fungal, I can't think of what else it would be other than gapeworm, and I couldn't find levamisole available so hopefully this will work. She's pretty skittish but she let me look inside her mouth earlier today and I saw nothing but a healthy young pink mouth.
She does gape to breathe but I have seen no shaking of the head.
Any info much appreciated! I'm at a loss, and definitely don't want the rest of my older flock to become infected with a deadly parasite.
Thank you!!
Oh, and she completely lost her voice in that same day as well. To me breathing sounds phlemy, but could be gurgly? Ugh. Sometimes I can hear it across the house (she's inside out of the cold).
Comb and wattles look a perfect red, feathers are glorious, no discharge from eyes or nose or beak or anything that I can tell, eating very well, moving around very spryly, but it sounds like she's gonna die of lack of oxygen if I don't figure this out! I just finished 5 days on fenbendazole horse wormer because that's all the feed store had in stock, put her on an antibiotic that I successfully used before for suspected mycoplasma, but she's not gotten any better and has no symptoms of a respiratory infection anyway.
So far no symptoms in any of my other birds. I just ordered some Valbazen but hoping for confirmation on dosage?? Unless it's fungal, I can't think of what else it would be other than gapeworm, and I couldn't find levamisole available so hopefully this will work. She's pretty skittish but she let me look inside her mouth earlier today and I saw nothing but a healthy young pink mouth.
She does gape to breathe but I have seen no shaking of the head.Any info much appreciated! I'm at a loss, and definitely don't want the rest of my older flock to become infected with a deadly parasite.
Thank you!!Oh, and she completely lost her voice in that same day as well. To me breathing sounds phlemy, but could be gurgly? Ugh. Sometimes I can hear it across the house (she's inside out of the cold).
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Her breathing is the worst yet today. 
May have to say bye to "Baby" far sooner than I'd hoped!!
