chicken with tourettes sydrome?

[tamberlin]

Hi!
I have an approx. 16 week old Sebright pullet who just randomly squacks off and on all day and all night. Just one loud squack - so loud they surprise her - looks completely involuntary. Could she have chicken tourettes? or mild Marek's disease? She was vaccinated, but we had another chick die of Mareks after struggling for a week, so we know we've got it around. The Squacker has been squacking for seriously a month and is otherwise healthy as far as I can tell.
Has anyone else heard or experienced anything like this?
Thank you!
Deb

 

[stargirl]

Could it be a cough or very big sneeze? When my girls RTI got really bad her sneezes started to sound like a single surprise sqawk.

 

[tamberlin]

All the time? Seriously, she does it in her sleep. I've woken up at 3AM and she's still at it.

 

[stargirl]

Poor thing! I never heard my girl do it in her sleep, no. I bet she's exhausted!

 

[5Leepy!]

I have hens that do that sometimes. When I posted asking about it someone had suggested that they're calling for a rooster. That made sense to me since the hens I have used to live with a rooster and don't anymore. They just sometimes do a random spontaneous loud quick squack and the other chickens don't seem to even take notice of it. Sounds to me like some sort of alarm but since the others don't even look up, that can't be what it is.

 

[ScaredOfShadows]

when did this start? If shes the only one making any wierd noises, I would say it might be allergies. Take a close look at her, see if the nose is draining or clogged...listen to her breathing, and smell her breath (nasty I know - lol ) but a foul smelling breath along with any discharge suggests a sinus or respitory infection.

just discharge and sneezing/squawking may be simple alleriges. I have a d'uccle pullet that has bad allergies and will do this when her allergies are set off.

If its more than one chicken and this one is just the most noticable, or even if just this chicken and there is discharge, swelling, crust, foul smell, etc add an antibiotic to their water for a week and do not consume eggs for 2 weeks. - this should clear up the symptoms.

 

[tamberlin]

She is on antibiotics right now. I'm watching to see if there is any change. No discharge or anything else unusual....
Maybe she's just wierd?