Hen with gross chunks in throat and gasping

[igotgoosed]

I have a hen who is making a strange sound, almost a scream, every few minutes and is now gasping and stretching out her neck. I felt her and noticed there was a lump at her throat. I looked inside and there is gross chunky stuff! It's whitish and looks like some blackish grayish too. What the crap is this??? I'm sure this is what is causing her to have breathing trouble. She doesn't have sneezing or any other cold like symptoms. Watery poo, and she is very thin. She was eating and drinking some until today.

It also smells when I opened her mouth

 

[cmedeiros17]

To me it sounds like it could be gapeworm.

I found this on Wikepedia which describes it in detail:

Clinical signs

Blockage of the bronchi and trachea with worms and mucus will cause infected birds to gasp for air. They stretch out their necks, open their mouths and gasp for air producing a hissing noise as they do so. This "gaping" posture has given rise to the common term "gapeworm" to describe Syngamus trachea.
These clinical signs first appear approximately 1–2 weeks after infection. Birds infected with gapeworms show signs of weakness and emaciation, usually spending much of their time with eyes closed and head drawn back against the body. An infected bird may give its head a convulsive shake in an attempt to remove the obstruction from the trachea so that normal breathing may be resumed.
Severely affected birds, particularly young ones, will deteriorate rapidly; they stop drinking and become anorexic. At this stage, death is the usual outcome. Adult birds are usually less severely affected and may only show an occasional cough or even no obvious clinical signs.

I would call a vet asap!

 

[igotgoosed]

That's originally what I was thinking....but she has that mass of chunky stuff in her throat....so now I'm thinking not gapeworm?

 

[igotgoosed]

I'm wondering if it's trichamonas?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/trichomonas

 

[cmedeiros17]

I hope you are able to figure it out and get treatment accordingly Poor baby. Hopefully someone else can offer some advice.

 

[dawg53]

I'm wondering if it's trichamonas?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/trichomonas

x2. It's not gapeworm. Sounds like canker. Treatment is metronidazole, one 250mg tablet orally once a day for 5 days will treat it. It can be purchased online as "Fishzole." If in fact it's canker, infected birds will be carriers and it is passed via waterers/feeders. Canker can be kept in check by adding 1/4 teaspoon acidified copper sulfate per gallon of water into their waterer for 3 days straight once a month, every month. Do not add no more than 1/4 teaspoon of copper sulfate, do not put it in a metal waterer, and dont add anything else to the treated water during the 3 days.

 

[igotgoosed]

Thanks dawg.! So...she was with the rest of the flock including chicks/pullets/poults, I'm guessing the will all need treatment then? I'm going to see if my local feed supply store has the meds, I'm afraid to wait for an order.

 

[Eggcessive]

It does sound more like canker than wet fowl pox that causes yellow cheese-like mouth lesions. Dawg53 knows the right meds to use for canker.

 

[dawg53]

Just give the metronidazole or fishzole to the hen in question unless others are showing the same crud in the mouth. For the others, you could start the copper sulfate for 3 days. It might be best to seperate the infected hen while using the copper sulfate during the 3 day period. You dont want to get too much chemicals in her at once.

 

[Michael Apple]

x2. It's not gapeworm. Sounds like canker. Treatment is metronidazole, one 250mg tablet orally once a day for 5 days will treat it. It can be purchased online as "Fishzole." If in fact it's canker, infected birds will be carriers and it is passed via waterers/feeders. Canker can be kept in check by adding 1/4 teaspoon acidified copper sulfate per gallon of water into their waterer for 3 days straight once a month, every month. Do not add no more than 1/4 teaspoon of copper sulfate, do not put it in a metal waterer, and dont add anything else to the treated water during the 3 days.

You know what's unfortunate is that carnidazole, metronidazole, emtryl, and ronidazole are all chemically similar, so a parasite that can become resistant to one, may be resistant to others. Metronidazole has worked for me in the past with canker. It's the best suggestion you could give. There is another newer product that is a safe plant derived alkaloid called Berimax. It really knocks out canker as well as e.coli, salmonella, giardia. The pigeon folks know about it. They tried a 10% solution on a flock of pigeons and in 5 days 90% of parasites were gone. After that they tested a 20% solution of 1 ml per liter of water and it was gone in 10 hours when the crop flush was examined under a microscope. Berimax may be something to keep on hand, just like metronidazole if the symptoms don't clear up.

Siegel pigeon supply carries it: http://www.siegelpigeons.com/catalog-canker.html