Hen holding mouth open and straining to "crow"

emilyodell

Hatching
Jun 30, 2015
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Hi I have a 1.5 year old Americauna mix and the same age Rhode Island Red in an outside coop. We move their coop/run around the back yard and they do not free range.

Yesterday I noticed that the Americauna was holding her mouth open. I thought she might be out of water but that wasn't the case and I couldn't get her to drink anything from a separate bowl I filled for her.

Today her mouth is still open and she's not moving around as much as normal (she's standing). She's also trying to "crow" but it sounds just like a wheeze or small screech. When she does that, every so often she would kind of close her eyes like something hurt (maybe I'm reading to much into this) but she definitely has something wrong.

This is only my second "batch" of chickens and I've never had this problem.

I've read some posts that make it sound like she possibly has gape worm but I haven't been able to grab her in the run to check really closely.

Any recommendations or suggestions?

Oh, and the other hen laid her egg in the coop and it looked cracked so I broke it open and they both ate it but the sick hen hasn't been eating any feed or drinking water from what I've seen.

And she laid an egg a day ago.

Thanks so much!

Emily
 
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I went to go check on them and the sick one is 'sneezing' and now the RIR is picking at her bottom and it's all soggy and some feathers are gone. I don't know what to do!

Their run is under some pine trees so there is pine straw underneath them though they've had that same ground cover for several months
 
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