Chicken Sneezing/Dry Fowl Pox

ika

In the Brooder
Oct 26, 2021
23
9
24
Hello,

Could someone share their thoughts on what might be happening to our chicken and possible treatments?

In addition to the below, we recently (2w ago ish) treated the flock with Valbazen (albendazol) for worms.

1) Rhode Island Red - 4lb
2) She has a croupy sneeze/cough every so often and sometimes you can hear a rattling noise when breathing. She's also recovering from Dry Fowl Pox. The spots are almost scabbed. She's acting normal otherwise. I was not able to observe sores inside her mouth, although it was very hard to see inside with her moving.
3) The dry fowl pox has been going for about 2/3 weeks and the sneezing for the last 24h.
4) No other birds with symptoms. The other 6 chickens are healthy.
5) No injuries
6) We do have some mosquitoes in Arizona and there are pigeons/wild birds around. Is my understanding that they can bring the Fowl Pox.
7) She has been eating, drinking, acting and laying as expected.
8) Normal poop. However, we noticed some moving larvae that seems to be tapeworm.
9) Added Mother Vinegar and Garlic to her water, iodine to the sores, and isolated her.
10 ) I would like to treat myself.
11) No picture are this moment.
12) We did a deep clean in the coop and run. Removed all bedding. Washed both coop and dirt run. Racked dirt. Applied mosquito repellent.

Thank you,
 
Welcome to BYC.
Since your RIR is the only hen showing the symptoms you described, I suspect two possibilities. It could be due to wet pox lesions in her mouth/esophagus/trachea, or it's something in the environment such as; inhalation of feed dust, dust from dust bathing, ammonia fumes from soiled bedding, pollen, pesticide use etc...

I dont suspect a respiratory disease at this time because your other birds arnt showing symptoms.
It would be best to go out at night with a flashlight and have someone hold the hen for you while you open her mouth and look for lesions with your flashlight.
If there arnt any lesions, then it must be environmental in which you can correct or eliminate the problems.

As far as suspected tapeworm larva go, they are either tapeworm segments or maggots.
Treatment for tapeworms is Equimax equine paste wormer which can be found at a feed store in the Equine section.
The Equimax dosage is given orally, 0.03ml per pound or 0.15ml for a 5 pound hen. Repeat in 10 days. Only worm the hen that had the tapeworm segments in the feces. Insects are the vector for tapeworms.
Here's a pic of tapeworm segments in chicken feces:
tapes seg.jpg
 
@dawg53, thank you for your reply!

We checked her mouth again and everything looked healthy. No signs of wet pox.
I've been keeping a close eye on her to see if I can identify patterns.

For a moment I thought it could be the feed because it almost seemed like she coughed/sneezed/had a rattling noise right after eating. However, she showed all these symptoms before eating this morning. So I guess I was wrong.

As for the tapeworks, yes, it looks like the ones in the picture. Can we use the Valbazen to treat them or there are extra benefits for using Equimax? Also, is there any egg withdraw period with Equimax?

We also found tapeworms in another poop in the run. So she's not the only one but I don't know who else has it. So maybe I should treat eveyone?

Thanks!
 
Valbazen used to treat tapeworm infections but it's not as effective as the praziquantel in the Equimax. However, Valbazen is excellent in getting rid of all types of poultry roundworms.
Generally there is a 14 day withdrawal period after using Equimax.
Too bad you didnt see which bird excreted the segments in the feces. You might have to dose all your birds with the Equimax, but that's up to you.
th3G3I95CG  equimax.jpg
 
All,

Here's a long overdue update on this case. I thought it would be helpful in case someone has similar issues.

The chicken recovered 100%. The fowl pox went away and she eventually stopped sneezing (or at least that we have noticed).

I believe we kept her separate from the other chickens until all the sore scabs were gone (about 3 weeks). We reintroduced her still sneezing.

No other chickens got sick or had any symptoms.

Thanks.
 

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