Chicken excessively yawning, shaking head and throwing food around.

[georgeg78]

Hi, I feel awful for seemingly only posting ill chicken posts but I can’t seem to get answers elsewhere!

I have a 4 year old rescue chicken. I am in the uK. She was treated for mites 2 months ago (ivermectin x3 and she’d fully cleaned x2). All clear now. However about a month ago she started to do some excessive yawning actions. I unfortunately had to go away, but two weeks later returning, it was still happening, plus head shaking.

I noticed ear crust and pus so took to vets who gave her an anti biotic. I also cleaned her ears. This didn’t do anything but she didn’t get worse. We the. Started her on surolan ear drops. This didn’t help and in last week she’s got worse, lost quite a bit of weight and more head yawning. Outer ears are now clean though. She was getting bullied quite a bit too. Took her to avian specialist who said ears look good but her skin was poor and mentioned the dreaded Meracks disease she’s had bloods taken a skin biopsy and ear swab (I insisted on this as still not convinced it’s not an inner ear infection. Another symptom in last few days Is a difficulty in picking up food and swallowingg it. She has an appetite but will pick food up and sort of throw it side ways. After a few attempts she’ll eat it. The vet has looked in her mouth and no shoe work or lesions

I’m now waiting for all the results. The thing is, her neck yawning just doesn’t feel like it is neurological but lore symporomatic of a reaction to pain. I could be wrong, but gut feeling. (She is on metecam painkiller which seems to help a bit)

I appreciate this looks like it isn’t going to end well but if anyone has ANY insight into this I’d be so grateful as she is a much loved friend. I feel awful about the mites and think this must be all my fault

 

[WhiteCollarWeezy]

Poor thang...hope she gets better...ivermectin x3???? So what dosage and how far apart where the doses? Did she accidentally consume any? Or maybe got into her nose/ eyes/ears? A lot of folks here @ BYC use this with success. But it scares me. I used to work @ a farmers cooperative and sold this to old farmers for their cattle in every form. Pour on...injectable...premise spray...drench. i read alot of expensive labels back then and it always scared me thinking about the cattle dosage and then a 3-5lb bird. Never had anyone ask for ivermectin to control any bugs on poultry 15 years ago..

 

[WhiteCollarWeezy]

Poor thang...hope she gets better...ivermectin x3???? So what dosage and how far apart where the doses? Did she accidentally consume any? Or maybe got into her nose/ eyes/ears? A lot of folks here @ BYC use this with success. But it scares me. I used to work @ a farmers cooperative and sold this to old farmers for their cattle in every form. Pour on...injectable...premise spray...drench. i read alot of expensive labels back then and it always scared me thinking about the cattle dosage and then a 3-5lb bird. Never had anyone ask for ivermectin to control any bugs on poultry 15 years ago..

Although times have changed? Can you post a video plz? So the vet was clueless? Or?? I soo hope she gets better...very soon..

 

[georgeg78]

Thanks so much for responding! She got 3x drops of ivermectin on her neck once a week for three weeks. It was the amount the vet told me to give - hope ok! I'm just trying to upload my video to flickr as don't know if can just embed one? She is definitely getting worse "yawning" wise. Still is trying to eat - seems quite hungry, just not sure how much is going down. I've now separated her from the others (shes indoors with me so she can have continued access to the food.

 

[georgeg78]

Ok, hopefully you can get access to the video here

https://flic.kr/p/2p7ssaF

(It's not me but our friend who looked after them a couple of weeks ago - you can see the yawning action which she is doing even more now)

 

[Bocktastic Quackles]

Have you’ve tried any homeopathic approaches? This website and her courses are gold:

https://joettecalabrese.com/?s=Ear+infection+

type in your chicken’s main most noticeable symptom, I did ear infections per what I read in your post. These remedies can often be found in natural grocery stores or natural vitamin shops and only cost $6-$12 per remedy vs a mint and leg a vet with cost with an “exotic animal,” or at least that’s what urban vets consider livestock.

I thankfully never had to use any on my first chickens, though wish I knew more when they did need healing from predator attacks. Now I feel more confidence about my treatment and cure plans and have built up my medical kits.

sharing this story for those that might find it helpful in diagnosing, treating and curing fly strike:

Of course prevention and keeping any environment clean is key to ultimatum health for any living organism. I’ve treated and cured my new rabbit (got him from a friend who was sick for 3 months and couldn’t properly care for all her meat rabbits) from fly strike. we had no idea he had it when i got him, thought it was a bite from when we separated them from his brothers. Turns out a fly laid an egg in his open wound and a maggot formed. I squeezed the puss out and was treating for an open wound - herp sulph 30c the best natural antibiotic without killing your gut health! Than I noticed that the wound wasn’t healing even with giving yarrow, comfrey and plantain, fleshing the wound out with antibiotic diluted solution and comfrey & yarrow poultice. Maggots need a hole to breath and it’s a good indicator that it was fly strike. I squeezed the hole until the maggots popped and pulled out the remaining carcass. I than continue to treat the wound topically and internally. Cleaning the wound alternating with the left over antibiotic diluted solution (left over from my chickens last visit to the vet office from my brothers dog), hydrogen peroxide and collide silver. I eventually just used the collide silver on the wound once I saw it was healing up nicely. I also would put a healing salve I made from beeswax, comfrey, chamomile and calendula - all excellent herbs to grow in your garden for quick skin healing, antibiotic, anti fungal, and anti microbial. did ivermectin topical paste once on the wound just in case any eggs or other maggots were in the wound or in him. Of course he licked it off which is ok with me, getting it inside his system is the best course of medicine working from the inside out. from there I continued to work the healing from the inside with herp sulph 30c and collide silver in his water. The inflammation went down within the next day which tells me I picked the right remedy and treatment plan.

 

[theoldchick]

Excessive yawning could mean there is something going on with the crop. Either she is developing a sour crop, or simply adjusting her crop when gorging with food.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/chicken-anatomy-crop-impacted-crop-sour/

https://backyarddino.com/7-reasons-why-chickens-yawn/

 

[georgeg78]

Excessive yawning could mean there is something going on with the crop. Either she is developing a sour crop, or simply adjusting her crop when gorging with food.

https://the-chicken-chick.com/chicken-anatomy-crop-impacted-crop-sour/

https://backyarddino.com/7-reasons-why-chickens-yawn/

The vet has checked her crop for sour crop and the yawning has got to the point where it is almost happening constantly, so I think more than just adjustment. I wish I did know though as think it’s causing the pain that prevents her from resting, eating or doing much else

 

[georgeg78]

Have you’ve tried any homeopathic approaches? This website and her courses are gold:

https://joettecalabrese.com/?s=Ear+infection+

type in your chicken’s main most noticeable symptom, I did ear infections per what I read in your post. These remedies can often be found in natural grocery stores or natural vitamin shops and only cost $6-$12 per remedy vs a mint and leg a vet with cost with an “exotic animal,” or at least that’s what urban vets consider livestock.

I thankfully never had to use any on my first chickens, though wish I knew more when they did need healing from predator attacks. Now I feel more confidence about my treatment and cure plans and have built up my medical kits.

sharing this story for those that might find it helpful in diagnosing, treating and curing fly strike:

Of course prevention and keeping any environment clean is key to ultimatum health for any living organism. I’ve treated and cured my new rabbit (got him from a friend who was sick for 3 months and couldn’t properly care for all her meat rabbits) from fly strike. we had no idea he had it when i got him, thought it was a bite from when we separated them from his brothers. Turns out a fly laid an egg in his open wound and a maggot formed. I squeezed the puss out and was treating for an open wound - herp sulph 30c the best natural antibiotic without killing your gut health! Than I noticed that the wound wasn’t healing even with giving yarrow, comfrey and plantain, fleshing the wound out with antibiotic diluted solution and comfrey & yarrow poultice. Maggots need a hole to breath and it’s a good indicator that it was fly strike. I squeezed the hole until the maggots popped and pulled out the remaining carcass. I than continue to treat the wound topically and internally. Cleaning the wound alternating with the left over antibiotic diluted solution (left over from my chickens last visit to the vet office from my brothers dog), hydrogen peroxide and collide silver. I eventually just used the collide silver on the wound once I saw it was healing up nicely. I also would put a healing salve I made from beeswax, comfrey, chamomile and calendula - all excellent herbs to grow in your garden for quick skin healing, antibiotic, anti fungal, and anti microbial. did ivermectin topical paste once on the wound just in case any eggs or other maggots were in the wound or in him. Of course he licked it off which is ok with me, getting it inside his system is the best course of medicine working from the inside out. from there I continued to work the healing from the inside with herp sulph 30c and collide silver in his water. The inflammation went down within the next day which tells me I picked the right remedy and treatment plan.

Thank you, I might well go down that route if I feel I can help her. She’s currently digging and dust bathing (inbetween yawns) so think there is still lots of life in her. But the yawns and head shaking just get in the way.

 

[georgeg78]

Pa the vet dismissed an inner ear infection, but I’ve read on here they are hard to get rid of so recent antibiotics may not have done it. He’s taken a swab for culture but guess that would only show middle or outer ear infections?