Wheezing chicken help…

[Makin Groceries]

I have a wheezing chicken. She eating, has good energy and laying. I have her isolated. Treated her 1st with natural dewormer- worm balancer tonic by moonlight mile herbs. Have her on ASV and garlic water and treated her once with ivermectin in case of gapeworms. She was worse in the beginning, turning purple red in her comb when coughing and wheezing. It is intermittent and spells are getting better. Currently she wheezes after exercising like flapping were wings or walking around a lot. However it’s been 1 week today that she had her 1st ivermectin treatment. I plan on dosing again at day 10. I keep wondering if I’m treating the right thing?? Shouldn’t it be better by now? I know gapeworms is rare, but we have a lot of apple snails and eggs around our pond and wild ducks. She had no other symptoms except for gasping for air stretching her neck and now recently coughing. No abnormal poop. No discharges of any kind. She was missing a few feathers on her back, but thought it could be her first molt. She was the only one looking a little ragged. None of the other flock looks affected. Your comments please…

 

[nuthatched]

What's her diet? Have you checked her crop? Sounds more like a respiratory issue.
What's her coop and bedding like.
Please note that all natural wormers do not work and garlic can be highly toxic to chickens.

 

[Makin Groceries]

She was free ranged and has a mobile coop which gets moved every 3-4 days onto fresh clover fields patch. Diet is organic layer pellet and smidge of scratch. And organic raw food scraps. They get granite grit for crop. Her crop was a bit squishy at first. I gave her GSE and it went down overnight. I continued to give it for a few more days to be sure it wasn’t yeast or fungal infection in crop. I treated her with ivermectin twice now 10 days apart. The first dose topically decreased the wheezing in half. After this she still was wheezing and coughing. She never had any drainage or gurgling noises in her chest. She started eating again once the respiratory distress lessened and is still laying eggs. Feathers are coming back in now. After second dose of ivermectin topically she has less wheezing ( hardly at all) but still coughs every now and then. She is still in the house in a create with pine shaving litter and giving her ACV in her water. She’s eating and drinking well. Ivermectin seems to have worked but very slowly. But I could see a difference with each application. Still thinking it was gapeworms. It’s been one week since last dose and I’m not sure if I should give it again if she’s still coughing every now and then? No other chicken seem to have beef affected.

 

[Makin Groceries]

She was free ranged and has a mobile coop which gets moved every 3-4 days onto fresh clover fields patch. Diet is organic layer pellet and smidge of scratch. They get granite for crop. Her crop was a bit squishy at first. I gave her GSE and it went down overnight. I continued to give it for a few more days. I treated her with ivermectin twice now 10 days apart. The first dose topically decreased the wheezing in half. After this she still was wheezing and coughing. She never had any drainage or gurgling noises in her chest. She started eating again once the respiratory distress lessened and is still laying eggs. Feathers are coming back in now. After second dose of ivermectin topically she has less wheezing ( hardly at all) but still coughs every now and then. She is still in the house in a create with pine shaving litter and giving her ACV in her water. She eating and drinking well. Ivermectin seems to have worked but very slowly. But could she a difference each application. Still thinking it was gapeworms. It’s been one week since last dose and I’m not sure if I should give it again if she’s still coughing .

 

[BastyPutt]

Those missing feathers look like wounds, not a molt. Id definetly start with a topical treatment on those. Neosporin for conventional, or coconut oil/shea butter for something natural.

As natural as my approach is @nuthatched is correct, anything advertised as a natural wormer does not work - we have tried them all, and we also avoid garlic. If you really wanted to stick with it, the only way I'd suggests it is with a garlic oil heavily diluted with a carrier oil like coconut.

For chickens who aren't accustomed to it, milk can act as a diarrhetic and would have the best effect for a natural treatment in cleaning our their gut. But if you want the best odds in treating something like worms and not go through the trial and error period where you lose birds in the process, conventional medicine is the way to go.

 

[allosaurusrock]

If you’re doing ivermectin, you need to do the third dose even if it was the wrong treatment. Missing that third dose is an incomplete treatment and can create dewormer resistant worms.

If things continue to go poorly, I would consider talking to an avian vet about antibiotics.