Gapeworm-like symptoms but not gapeworm?

[metarachel]

Okay, this is a long one, but please bear with me; we are desperately trying to save our hen!

I have a red sex link pullet (she's about ten months old now) who we got at eight weeks old, and has had a pendulous crop since we got her. It's also important to note that she's always seemed a little developmentally "off"; her comb and wattles are tiny, like teenager's, and never turned from pink to fully red like they normally do at sexual maturity. I don't know if she's ever laid, but I honestly doubt it. She's also never seemed quite all the way "there" mentally--she's extremely sweet but just constantly underfoot and always looks spaced out; we literally named her Stoner because of it.

Anyway, she'd always been fine with with the pendulous crop, until about three to four weeks ago, when she developed what appeared to be sour crop--the crop felt very squishy and hugely distended, and she wasn't eating or passing much stool, and there was some spittle at her beak (nothing stank, though), and she'd lost weight. She was also making a rough kind of hacking/coughing sound, and stretching her neck and sneezing a lot (not the cute little normal chicken sneeze, but a really loud, rough, sudden noise where her neck would shoot all the way forward). Lastly, her face, combs, and wattle were even paler than usual. We isolated her in a run-within-the-run so she couldn't access the free feed and treated for sour crop with Nystatin, a carb-restricted diet (she was eating full fat greek yogurt, olive oil, scrambled eggs, and a vitamin supplement) and also custom-made her a crop bra, and the sour crop got better, but SHE didn't.

She did start eating and pooping again, and put some weight back on, but she was still making that terrible squawk-cough and that weird really aggressive sneezing. She was also making a kind of snoring noise by now--a rough kind of squawky-grumble with every breath (I couldn't tell if it was on the inhale or the exhale). By this point we figured if she'd been infectious, someone else would've caught it (there are 29 hens in our flock right now), but nobody else has shown any other symptoms, and Stoner was starting to act pretty depressed being away from her flock so we let her back in while we researched the next step. (We do not have access to an avian vet.) Plus she's had no discharge from the nose, beak, or eyes at any point. Since whatever she has is clearly not contagious, and all her other symptoms lined up with gapeworm (they have access to pasture), we started treating with Safe-Guard. As a precaution, we treated the whole flock. We went with the five-day dosing, and after day 2 she seemed to really be improving. The snoring noise went away, and both the coughing and the sneezing lessened. Some color came back into her face, comb, and wattles. She wasn't stretching her neck out or pulling her head into her body nearly as much.

Unfortunately, by day 4 she seemed to be getting worse again. She's not making that awful snoring noise anymore, but she is almost constantly making that rough squawk, doing a lot of that aggressive sneezing again, and still pulling her head into her body (although she doesn't seem to be doing much, if any, neck stretching except involuntarily during the sneezes).

At this point we are at a total loss. I don't know what else to do to help her. I don't even know if we CAN help her, or if she's got, like, cancer or a congenital issue or a nerve problem that's only going to get worse. I honestly can't tell if she's suffering or not--she still hangs with her sisters and preens and eats and comes running for treats but seems to have trouble eating much at once (she'll take a few bites and then cough for a while and then dive back in) and has definitely fallen way down the pecking order. I don't know what to do and I am very much hoping someone here recognizes what's happening and can help.

I have a video of her making the sound. (This is back during the sour crop treatment; the blue thing is her bra, and she's put on some weight since, but the sound is near-constant now.) I couldn't get it to attach (too large maybe?) but here is the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11AdCp6KMSZUwVmy-RvrIXCRsQklAnFnY/view?usp=sharing

Thank you!

 

[azygous]

Please post the video to YouTube, then paste the link here. It will embed.

I'm unable to view the video on Google. Besides its search engine, Google is a nazi in my experience for everything else.

Have you pried her beak open and looked into her throat? If there is anything there besides clean pink tissue, describe it and photograph it.

There are diseases that cause gunky plaque in the mouth and throat that can cause such symptoms. Gape worm is quite rare in the US.

 

[metarachel]

Please post the video to YouTube, then paste the link here. It will embed.

I'm unable to view the video on Google. Besides its search engine, Google is a nazi in my experience for everything else.

Have you pried her beak open and looked into her throat? If there is anything there besides clean pink tissue, describe it and photograph it.

There are diseases that cause gunky plaque in the mouth and throat that can cause such symptoms. Gape worm is quite rare in the US.

Thank you so much for the embed info. Video is here:

I haven't looked down her throat, but I've seen her tongue and the inside of her mouth and there doesn't appear to be anything there. I can go out tomorrow with a flashlight to see further down if that'll help?

 

[azygous]

She sounds tortured. But it also sounds like she has an obstruction she's trying to get cleared.

Since she's had this pendulous crop, that may be connected in some way. Try different levels of support with the crop bra. It may be too tight or it may not be tight enough.

Try letting her wear it only at night and see what the crop does during the day without.

But do try to get a real good look with a flashlight down her throat. If you pry open the beak and hold it open wide, the throat widens at its greatest and you can see farther down. She could have a foreign body stuck in there you might be able to see.

Here's what a chicken's throat looks like. It also shows how to syringe something into the crop.

 

[metarachel]

She sounds tortured. But it also sounds like she has an obstruction she's trying to get cleared.

Since she's had this pendulous crop, that may be connected in some way. Try different levels of support with the crop bra. It may be too tight or it may not be tight enough.

Try letting her wear it only at night and see what the crop does during the day without.

But do try to get a real good look with a flashlight down her throat. If you pry open the beak and hold it open wide, the throat widens at its greatest and you can see farther down. She could have a foreign body stuck in there you might be able to see.

Here's what a chicken's throat looks like. It also shows how to syringe something into the crop.View attachment 3378700

Thank you so much! Her mouth and what I can see of her throat look healthy--thank you for the reference image.

We've tried taking the bra off during the day for the last two days, and she does seem to be doing quite a bit better. I don't know if she's just healing from whatever was happening, or if it had to do with the bra, but I did notice that she'd been quiet all day today and when I went to put the bra back on she started making that noise more or less the instant I touched her crop. (Her crop is very much not full, though, which by 2 hours before sunset I was hoping it would be, but she does still seem to be having trouble eating a lot in one sitting. I'll go check again right before dark.)

Today we put the bra on pretty loose, and she made the noises for about twenty minutes but now has been almost totally quiet for at least that long, just a caw here and there and one or two isolated sneezes.

Her comb and wattles have also turned a nice healthy deep red and, weirdly enough, seem to actually be getting bigger. So I'm hopeful that she's on the mend now, but I'll update if it turns out she isn't.

Again, thank you thank you thank you!