Gapeworm? .Nope, Obstruction!

[AugeredIn]

So you saw the thread on the four peafowl I picked up at auction cheap. When I was looking at the birds in the auction cages I noticed one of the whites was occasionally gaping. She/he other wise looked great and the breast is full. When we got home, I broke out the ivermectin and wormed them all orally before they went in the holding pen.

This weekend (10 days later) she/he was gaping less frequently, but still gaping. It has been my experience that ivermectin works very quickly on gape worm when orally treated, but I was still not to concerned. She/he was eating and drinking and otherwise appeared alright.

This afternoon my daughter decided they needed to be spoiled with grapes and bread. The gaping bird took a large green grape whole and had what appeared to be a very difficult time swallowing. She did the same thing on a large piece of bread. Now I know this is common for birds in the late stages of gape worm infection, but not typical of mildly affected birds that other wise appear fine.

I grabbed her/him when she got close and looked down the throat and did not see anything. Then i noticed a fine abrasion line on both sides of her/his lower beak. Lo and behold there was a string looped under her/his beak. I managed to get my finger under it, got i loose and began pulling the loop.

Here is what came up:

 

[AugeredIn]

I have no idea what it is. It looks like a fishing lure but has no hook. The line is extremely high tensile strength like Spectra or Kevlar. She/he would never have broken it.

It came up easy and I cleaned the small wounds on each side of the mouth.

No telling how long he/she has been eating with this thing dangling half way to its craw.

 

[melodie_a]

wow. I bet she is relieved that you took care of it. It has probably been driving her nuts.

 

[deerman]

Thats the first thing i do when i see one gaping.....check the throat....they are well known for picking up strange things. String from a feed bags and etc. I had that happen when i first started with peafowl.

 

[MinxFox]

When Peep was a really small peachick, he would eat hair! I have long hair so I had to be careful when leaning over his pen or cleaning it out that I didn't leave behind a strand of my hair because he would eat it. It always worried us because we were afraid he would get it stuck around his tongue. He never got it stuck around his tongue but sometimes we would find him with hair hanging out of his mouth and we would have to carefully pull it out.

It is a good thing he no longer does that. I am glad you found out what was wrong!

 

[trailchick]

great job for paying such close attention!!!!!!!
I cant tell what is is either, but at least it is out of the bird!

 

[AugeredIn]

Yeah I felt pretty good after getting it out. I can't imagine what it was like having that stuck there for so long.