Please Help Hen Sneezing And Breathing Hard

[sutillman]

I noticed my four month old japanese pullet sneezing yesterday. I isolated her and now she is like gasping for air. Does anyone know what could be wrong. She is still drinking and eating and her poop looks ok. No other chickens are showing any signs of this. Any help will be appreciated.

 

[usschicago1]

It could be this. All your information is here : http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/94/mycoplasma-gallisepticum-infection-mg-chronic-respiratory-disease-chickens
Keep Us Updated

 

[onthespot]

Isolate her first! Bleach out the waterer and change the food to help minimize the exposure of the other birds. DON'T toss it out for the wild birds to eat, cuz they might just eat it, get sick, and re-infect your flock!

 

[usschicago1]

Quote:

 

[speckledhen]

She also may have something stuck in her windpipe and is trying to breathe around it. Had one like that recently, wheezing like air being let out of a balloon slowly, and scared me to death. Was ready to cull her, but after consulting a very experienced friend here, has decided she had blown an airsac or she had something stuck since it came on very suddenly just after she laid an egg, her first post-molt one. After keeping her overnight in the house, she had worked it out and has been fine ever since.

 

[sutillman]

I have her isolated. Can anyone recommend what I can give her? I read that Tetracyclene could help. Any opinions?

 

[plantlady]

My vet gave me doxycycline when my rooster got an upper respiratory. But she insisted on examining him first to make sure it wasn't lower respiratory (worse). And of course I did have to take him to the vet. But same symptoms: wheezing, sneezing, snotty, labored breathing.

 

[speckledhen]

He didn't say snotty, though. That's a whole other ballgame. If respiratory, I will not treat. You dont even know if it's viral, bacterial, or she just has a piece of something in her windpipe or has blown an airsac. Blindly treating with very weak antibiotics (terramycin/tetracycline) will just waste money, IMO. You realize that viruses dont respond to antibiotics at all, anyway.

The usual protocol is to isolate and observe and provide supportive therapy till you can determine what the cause is. Supportive would be warmth, water with unfiltered ACV in it, extra protein and quiet. If it's something stuck in her windpipe, it may work itself out. If it's respiratory illness, let her immune system take over and kick it out. If it won't do that, she is probably constitutionally weak anyway.

 

[sutillman]

Well, she died a little while ago. No other chickens in the pen she was in are acting sick. Should I treat them as a precaution or just wait and see? She just started sneezing a couple of days ago and today with the wheezing. She died so fast it worries me there may have been more than a respitory problem. I have around 65 chickens, some I'm hoping to start showing soon and I just don't want to loose them. Please, if anyone can help me with any advice I would be in you debt forever! People think I'm nuts when I talk about my chickens with such passion and they all want to be petted and picked up when I go in their pens because they think I'm their mother(which my husband thinks is so funny), but until you have chickens you just don't understand!

 

[speckledhen]

Sounds more like she had something stuck. You could open her windpipe and find out.