3 week old chick trouble swallowing

[chick_weed]

Hello all. Bear with me, these are my first ever chickens...I have 6 (2 Cochin, 4 RIR).

I have a 3-3 1/2 week old Cochin, who started having problems last week with swallowing, was squawking in pain, scratching at her face, then was not eating or drinking and acting lethargic. She did get a hard bump when she was put back in the brooder - she flew out of my hand and hit the cardboard and her leg on the feeder. It was about 15-20 minutes later that she started with the awful squawking. I was thinking maybe she strained her neck? She acted like she was having trouble swallowing/choke so that afternoon she was taken to the vet - in case of any major injury - but could not find any obvious breaks, nothing lodged in throat, but had some tenderness on her left side. She was tube fed directly into her crop and sent home. Returned the next day for more tube feeding - she lost 10 gm body weight over night. She was sent home with some powdered food that she was given (mixed with warm water) with a small dose syringe. After that she perked up and though still sleeping a lot, was pooping up a storm and her crop was full and she was drinking, becoming more active and no longer keeping away from the other chicks. She is now about 1/2 the size of the other chicks. She seemed to be getting back to normal ~80% until this morning when she started with the gaping beak, head shaking, and had a lot of viscous fluid (saliva?) with some food bits. Sometimes it is just water coming back up. It has no smell, it is clear, not foamy, but it is very "stringy". I figure she was just regurgitating. But she seems to be in a small amount of distress when she begins the head shaking. And she has been extremely vocal since this all started. This morning she had one very wet/liquid stool which was uniformly dark brown (almost black) then later in the day, two small more solid stools w/white - more normal in color, but dry consistency (not pasty) and small volume. No blood in stool from what I could see. She has no palpable tenderness.

She has another appointment tomorrow with the vet - I am hoping that something may be more apparent. I don't want her to suffer, but since she had 2 1/2 days (at least) of doing well, I want to give her another chance - even if it is just a check up and more tube feeding. I don't want her to lose any more body mass.

Has anyone else experienced this type of problem? Is the viscous "saliva" normal? I thought I had read somewhere that the crop produces saliva, and sometimes if they have too much water, then lower their head to eat, it may come back up. I would think that if she was born with a defect she would not have thrived (she was always a smidge smaller than the other Cochin, but not enough to be able to say "Oh - that's her!"). She seems to be able to turn her neck in all directions, can preen her wing feathers, but she doesn't crane her neck up as much as the other chicks (and honestly, I don't remember if she did or not previously.)

Any ideas would be appreciated! Thanks! And of course, I will post an update after our vet visit - I am extremely lucky to have an avian vet 5 minutes from me!
-Jen

 

[chick_weed]

UPDate: Zig is at the vet's to spend a few days being tube fed. She doesn't have any obstructions and no apparent reason to be having trouble eating. The only odd thing is she is the only one of my 6 chicks whose beak clicks audibly.

 

[lfoose]

I am having a similar issue and waiting to get some info on it too. How is your chick?

 

[chick_weed]

My chick is fine now - she had been to the vet to be tube fed 3 times (the last visit was an over-nighter). She seemed perfectly fine for 2 days, then relapsed. I was swabbing food out of her lower beak, to keep her from aspirating. I noticed that I couldn't visualize her tongue and could feel a hard pointy lump under her lower beak where it meets her esophagus. I swabbed something that seemed to be connected under her tongue - looked like a piece of tissue! I was freaked, managed to hook the thing over her lower beak. While waiting to take her to the emergency vet, she scratched at her face and with a very loud SQUAWK! she pulled out a 6" red thread!! It had gotten coated with food and was displacing her tongue! She has been fine ever since. Eating/Drinking/Feathering out - all be it slowly and she has some serious catching up to do size wise.

I had thought she had some sort of obstruction - turns out it was her displaced tongue!

Have you checked for obstructions? Can you see the chick's tongue? Does the beak close fully?

In a way, I was lucky, if she hadn't been knocked about, I may not have had any idea anything was really wrong for a while. She was obviously distressed - very noisy...peeping incessantly. Once the thread was out, she has been very quiet...though she peeps more when she can see me! (I think she was spoiled with all that attention!)

Oh, and she no longer makes that clicking sound - I think her displaced tongue may have been causing her beak to be misaligned slightly - just enough for it to click.

Not sure if this helps any!

 

[lfoose]

I am glad the chick is doing better.

I can't see any obstructions in my chicks mouth.

She'll take a few bites of food and then stop becuase the saliva gets to be too much in her mouth. I would feed her w/a syringe but I don't know what I'd use or if it would make her worse.

 

[chick_weed]

If you are feeding the chicks crumbles, try pulverizing some to a powder then add some water to make a slurry and use a dropper to feed her. Dropper clean water after so many drops of feed. My chick also seemed to have a lot of saliva when she was having problems - she would shake her head and the saliva was very viscous. Can you see the chick's tongue? Can you hear anything when she breathes? (Mine made a whistling noise.)

Also, after you are done feeding, make sure you swab any excess feed out of the beak so she doesn't aspirate. Even if you can get a little more into her this way, hopefully she'll keep her strength up enough to start eating more.

Another option, is if you have an avian vet in your area that you could take her too - might be able to show you how to tube feed directly into the crop. Mine used a special mteal tube they could order for me (if I needed one) and once you are shown how, it is apparently fairly easy, as you can feel the tube in the crop.

Hope your chick improves! I know how frustrating it can be! (These are my first chicks ever - and I am so attached!! I lost a lot of sleep and tears over little Zig...so relieved she is fine now.)

Jen