Help! Chicken dying, head and neck swollen

[Wyorp Rock]

@Eggcessive @casportpony thoughts?

Did she ever have mucous or discharge from the nostrils or eyes?
Also, I know you are treating this as very contagious, but by any chance did you look in the beak at all for anything unusual.

It could be Newcastle, if that is what the vet mentioned. Fowl Cholera can also cause similar symptoms. Without testing, there in no way to know for sure.

She was a lovely hen - I'm so sorry, thank you very much for taking the time to send photos and share with us. I hope the chicks don't become ill.

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[Eggcessive]

Very sorry for your loss. In the link posted above, swollen head syndrome is another disease, along with exotic Newcastles that might be a possibility, but again, a professional necropsy or testing of the refrigerated body would be necessary to confirm what was wrong.

 

[Petra Pancake]

@Wyorp Rock, @Eggcessive , thanks for the input. I never saw any discharge from her eyes or nostrils. But then the whole thing happened very fast. Friday evening when I did my evening round at the coop she was okay, looking and acting normal. Saturday before noon she was all swollen up and non-responsive, getting worse during the afternoon and evening. Sunday morning she was dead. I didn't take her to do a necropsy. There is an institute here that does it, but it's something like 3 hours there and back with paper work in the middle. Sunday is a workday in Israel and I couldn't take half a day off to drive a dead chicken around. I also didn't want to store a bird that died of an unknown disease in our food fridge. Should there be any more deaths, however, I'll take time off and have a necropsy done. Two posters in this threat asked if I checked her tongue - I didn't. What would that have told me if I had? Why is the tongue important?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

@Petra Pancake

That would have been me asking those questions - I'm a bit nosy

She declined so quickly, I was just curious about the tongue and inside of the beak, just to rule out possible bee sting, spider bite, etc. Since the box was turned over and there could have been a scuffle, she had no mucous or discharge from the eyes - I just wondered if she did get bitten by something or swallow a bee/spider. I was just asking if you saw anything unusual like tongue swelling or anything in the beak that looked odd.

 

[OwO]

Hello sorry if this has already been mentioned, but Mycoplasma Gallisepticum is known to cause swelling of the head and neck and lots of breathing problems

 

[Petra Pancake]

@Wyorp Rock, well, I didn't look into her beak and she kept it closed, despite the heavy breathing, and it was also closed when she was dead. Maybe I should have tried, though. I looked for bite wounds or stings around the head but couldn't see any. The swelling and darkish color made it hard to see any small injuries. Her baby chicks also had bad luck - I didnt close the door of their enclosure tightly enough and the 5 of them escaped. Two got eaten by a stray cat that keeps hanging around. The other 3 I managed to round up and catch after crawling for an hour through the bushes after them. I reckon I'm somewhat clumsier and slower than the cat... hope they make it and don't escape again. Interesting thing, since their mother is gone they refuse to sleep in their sleeping box, the one that was turned over. Maybe in the end there really was something scary that got their mom? Would be really sad, but still better than some contagious disease.

 

[Petra Pancake]

@MelonHeadSeb , thanks, Mycoplasma Gallisepticum is also a possibility. If there are more deaths, I'll have a necropsy to find out.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry to hear about the chicks.
Hopefully the other 3 will remain safe, happy and healthy

 

[Petra Pancake]

Update: another hen is dead! Also a broody with chicks. She was okay last night at sunset and dead this morning. No swollen head, no secretions from eyes or nostrils, no torticollis. No signs of an attack or a struggle. Just dead, lying there stretched out on her side, as if she keeled over. Taking her to a necropsy after work.

 

[DuckPro]

Oh it's so sad seeing a poor hen like that

http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/WryNeck-NaturalTreatment.html
Best I can do