My hen is making odd "swallowing" gesture is she ill?-please help!

[fifibreen]

Please help with any info on what may be wrong with our bird.

1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
-Silver laced Wyandotte
-11 months old
-Seems normal weight

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
-hard to identify, trouble swallowing? irritation in throat? colic? a link to a video in youtube added to better explain...

3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
- First noticed yesterday 12/10/2011

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
-No

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
-No

6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
-Unaware of cause

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
-Yes

8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
-Normal so far

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
-None

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
-I have yet to find a single vet in my area that will touch a chicken. Unless I can eventually find a vet, I am on my own...

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
Please see video to see behavior

The behavior is most pronounced at the beginning, like she is trying to swallow. It was difficult to catch on video, I hope I got enough.

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
-compressed pellet bedding, and wood shavings, coop is well ventilated, and we scoop out the poo from the roost daily.

It looks like she is having trouble swallowing or keeping something down? Her crop is not hard, and I can't detect an odor at this time. She seems to be eating and drinking normally, and is also laying. This behavior is odd and worries me. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[elmo]

My guess would be that she's adjusting food in her crop. You said her crop was not hard, so that's good. Check it in the morning to see if it's empty again.

I suppose it's possible she might have something lodged in there that's too big to go down, but isn't blocking the other food.

 

[pips&peeps]

I would open her mouth though, just to check she doesn't have something stuck that you may be able to reach and get out.

 

[fifibreen]

Thank you for replying. If there is something big in there any suggestions on what we might do. Is this a wait and see kind thing?

 

[fifibreen]

I could not see anything visible in her mouth, or as far as we could see in her throat. We gave her a full pat down to see if our novice selves could find anything obvious. I did not think much of it when I saw her doing it yesterday, but when she was doing it frequently today we got worried. I appreciate any suggestions! Thank you

 

[donnavee]

I got a SLW from a local farm that acted like that - didn't notice until we got her home. However, her crop was hard and she had little interest in food and very watery poop. She was diagnosed with an impacted crop that progressed into a sour crop. We tried medication, but she had become weak and we eventually lost her. Be sure to check her crop in the morning to make sure it is empty.

 

[pips&peeps]

Vigorous massage of the crop will help if she is impacted, just don't wait too long.

My daughters hen got impacted this past year. She was full of rocks. I was told by my vet to massage her crop on the bottom where it empties into the stomach and she finally passed whatever was blocking it. She pooped small rocks for a week!!!!!. She did end up with a bit of a yeast infection from the impaction but I just flushed her with oxine and she is fine.

 

[fifibreen]

We will do a crop massage ASAP and I will check her crop in the morning again, I appreciate any and all suggestions thank you

 

[deerman]

Gape worms.........have you wormed them.......wazine does take care of gape worms........Gape worms live in the throat.....chicken can get them from eating earthworm,snail,and slugs.

 

[fifibreen]

They have not been recently wormed! And they do eat all kinds bugs. I do have wazine fortunatly, but finding any other wormer for poultry in my neck of the woods proves difficult. We will go on a egg diet for the next two weeks and see if worming with wazine can help. Thank you for the suggestion.