Help please! My hen has a respiratory disease.

[IncognitoMode4723]

My 3 year old black Australorp hen(Bertha) has been having trouble breathing (she holds her beak open and pants) and she sneezes a lot, sometimes very loudly. Sometimes she shakes her head, but not very often. She is lighter than the other 2 hens. She had not been laying eggs for about 4 months, but started laying again on 3/28/2024 (for 11 days).

She started showing symptoms on 3/1/2024 – it has been about a month now. My other 2 hens have not shown any symptoms yet.

There is no signs of trauma, such as bleeding, injury, broken bones or anything like that.

I am not sure what may have caused her respiratory distress, although I do recall that the hens may have eaten around a patch of fungus before she got the issue. She has had other problems in the past – bumblefoot (which never got that bad and has since gone away) and she laid a lash egg when she was about 2 years old. Please see my previous posts on the lash egg and bumblefoot for more information.

Where we live (Austin, Texas) the summers get very hot (100 degrees) but right now the temperatures are in the 70-80s, so I don’t think that heat stress could have anything to do with it.

She has been eating and drinking normally. She eats primarily a complete feed (Purina Layena layer pellets) and water. I hardly ever give my birds treats. When I do give treats, I feed them apple, or yogurt with garlic and ginger.

Her poop is normal – it is not bloody or runny. Please see pic below.

I have not really been treating her with antibiotics or anything as I do not know what disease she exactly has. In addition, I am not a very experienced person when it comes to handling poultry diseases, so I did not want to give her a medication without asking for other people’s opinions on what disease she has and what medication to give.

I do not have access to a nearby veterinarian so I am not able to take her to the vet for help. So unfortunately I am forced to treat her entirely on my own.

I have below a video of her as well exhibiting the condition.

I do not believe that the issue is being caused by worms. I read several people saying that gapeworm is not that common, and that sneezing is not associated with gapeworm. I also saw a video of a chicken with gapeworm, and it did seem like she was behaving the same way as Bertha is.

I will link my album where I have some videos of her so you can see the way she is. I also made a previous post about this back in march. You can read it if you want.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/albums/users/incognitomode4723.642335/

 

[coach723]

I don't see a poop picture..? If she laid normally after the odd eggs, then it's less likely that was lash material, and more likely that it was a malformed egg. That could have been an early indication that things might be going awry in the reproductive tract, or it could have just been a glitch, which do sometimes happen. So she's laid normally in the last few days?
Worming is pretty safe, if in doubt, I would go ahead and do that, unless you can get a fecal test done to check for that.
Do you feel any bloat in her abdomen? How is her weight, is she normal, or is her keel very pronounced, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, is she overweight?

 

[coach723]

Are all her droppings that consistency? While not super runny, they are looser than I would say is normal unless she's drinking a lot of water, and it appears there is some undigested stuff in there as well as some mucous. If you have never wormed her, then I still would recommend doing that. You can also do a round of the Tylan to see if it helps with the gaping. Just because you don't see worms in droppings, doesn't mean they aren't there. The only way to know for sure is a fecal test.
Most often they are never seen, they live their entire life cycle inside the bird and then are digested. The test looks for the eggs, which are microscopic. That could explain her weight loss as well.

 

[Evadig]

@BarnyardChaos maybe you could come see (I saw you responded a while back so I thought you might have knowledge of what's going on - hope you don't mind me tagging you! )

 

[Sarahh_Janeyy]

My 3 year old black Australorp hen(Bertha) has been having trouble breathing (she holds her beak open and pants) and she sneezes a lot, sometimes very loudly. Sometimes she shakes her head, but not very often. She is lighter than the other 2 hens. She had not been laying eggs for about 4 months, but started laying again on 3/28/2024 (for 11 days).

She started showing symptoms on 3/1/2024 – it has been about a month now. My other 2 hens have not shown any symptoms yet.

There is no signs of trauma, such as bleeding, injury, broken bones or anything like that.

I am not sure what may have caused her respiratory distress, although I do recall that the hens may have eaten around a patch of fungus before she got the issue. She has had other problems in the past – bumblefoot (which never got that bad and has since gone away) and she laid a lash egg when she was about 2 years old. Please see my previous posts on the lash egg and bumblefoot for more information.

Where we live (Austin, Texas) the summers get very hot (100 degrees) but right now the temperatures are in the 70-80s, so I don’t think that heat stress could have anything to do with it.

She has been eating and drinking normally. She eats primarily a complete feed (Purina Layena layer pellets) and water. I hardly ever give my birds treats. When I do give treats, I feed them apple, or yogurt with garlic and ginger.

Her poop is normal – it is not bloody or runny. Please see pic below.

I have not really been treating her with antibiotics or anything as I do not know what disease she exactly has. In addition, I am not a very experienced person when it comes to handling poultry diseases, so I did not want to give her a medication without asking for other people’s opinions on what disease she has and what medication to give.

I do not have access to a nearby veterinarian so I am not able to take her to the vet for help. So unfortunately I am forced to treat her entirely on my own.

I have below a video of her as well exhibiting the condition.

I do not believe that the issue is being caused by worms. I read several people saying that gapeworm is not that common, and that sneezing is not associated with gapeworm. I also saw a video of a chicken with gapeworm, and it did seem like she was behaving the same way as Bertha is.

I will link my album where I have some videos of her so you can see the way she is. I also made a previous post about this back in march. You can read it if you want.


https://www.backyardchickens.com/gallery/albums/users/incognitomode4723.642335/

Are you able to get a hold of Tylosin (Tylan)? It's pretty accessible even without a vet. I would look up dosing for her weight and give to her orally for 30 days. It has very minimal, if any, side effects. It is used for respiratory illness caused by mycoplasma. If that's the issue, it should resolve rather quickly. If that isn't the issue, I would still keep her on it for a full 30 days. I believe the dosage we use is 1ml/kg of a 50.5mg/ml Tylosin solution. (So if you have a 3kg bird you would give 3ml of 50.5mg/ml solution). They have stuff you can put in their water but I think it works better if you administer directly, and my vet has said we shouldn't treat the whole flock.
This is just what I have learned throughout the many illnesses with my chickens. I hope it helps.
Edit to add: mycoplasma can cause egg issues as well, so I think it's worth a try

 

[BarnyardChaos]

@BarnyardChaos maybe you could come see (I saw you responded a while back so I thought you might have knowledge of what's going on - hope you don't mind me tagging you! )

I don't mind at all! Unfortunately, I'm no help with respiratory issues. I've been away from the board for several months, so I haven't been much help to anybody lately!
As for the Safeguard wormer, it's safe and is used off-label for poultry. An avian vet once told me you'd have to dose her 100X the recommended dose for there to be any danger. He had to follow protocol and advise me not to eat her eggs or meat for (I forget - what, 2 weeks? A month?) awhile. But then I reframed the question: Would HE eat the eggs or meat without any withdrawal period - and his answer was YES.
I hope you find a diagnosis and treatment for her soon.

 

[IncognitoMode4723]

Thank you to all of you for responding. My last 2 posts didn't get any responses. Made me feel kind of demoralized.

 

[coach723]

I get some of my supplies here, but they are currently sold out:
https://jedds.com/products/tylosin-powder
A lot of meds are being switched to prescription only, but search for other pigeon or bird supply places, it may be in stock there.
I found it available here, I have never ordered from here, so have no experience with this retailer:
https://pigeonsuppliesplus.com/prod...6e08cd7450cbbdddc64c6cf2e8891f6d48747c6d56d2c
Also found it here:
https://birdpalproducts.com/products/tylosin-powder-for-birds
Some can't ship to California, if you are there.
For worming you can use Safeguard Liquid Goat wormer, or Valbazen, labeled for cattle. Safeguard is usually available locally, Valbazen usually has to be ordered on line. Wormers still do not require prescription.
The wormers are very safe, it won't hurt anything even if she didn't have them. Garlic, ACV, herbals, are not effective. I learned the hard way. They may be useful as a preventative, to help with the immune system, but there really isn't any proof. I had really sick, and a couple that died, early on, from internal parasites. So I don't mess around anymore. I have never killed or hurt a bird by worming them.
If you get the Safeguard the dose is by weight, .25 ml per pound of body weight orally, for 5 days in a row. You will need an oral syringe.
For Valbazen, dose for a standard sized bird is .5 ml orally, two doses 10 days apart.

 

[coach723]

Withdrawl for Safeguard is 14 days following dose, if you choose to follow the withdrawl. Many people continue to use the eggs. Do what you are comfortable with . The medication is also used in humans sometimes, the concern is usually allergic reaction, if you were allergic to it. I continue to use the eggs, and am still fine. If you sell or give away, then you might want to follow withdrawl for that.

 

[coach723]

I personally prefer to use medications that are not multi-use. That way you aren't medicating for something you don't need to.
Ronidazole has some issues, link below. It's banned for use in food animals in the USA, and is a possible carcinogen. Label says "tylosine" which is either a typo, or something other than tylosin, searches for tylosine bring up only tylosin results. It also contains, levamisole, a wormer, and amprolium, a coccidiostat. If you choose to try this, then I wouldn't use the Safeguard at the same time.
https://poultrydvm.com/drugs/ronidazole
This thread has another link, with more info:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...nidazole-for-canker-in-your-chickens.1592106/