Issue with peacock--respiratory or gape worm?

[SharW75]

I have a 3 yo male peacock who was acting fine yesterday morning (calling, displaying, etc.), but was gasping for air last night when I checked on them before bed. He is also wheezing. His eyes are clear, no nasal discharge, no swollen sinuses. I gave him a dose of valbazen (1cc) last night in case it's gape worm. If it's gape worm, should I continue the valbazen for several days then repeat in 10 days, or is one dose enough then repeat in 10 days?

If the issue is a respiratory infection, I have Baytril 2.27% injectable. What dosage should I give him? How many days should he get it, and how many times a day? Also, can injectable Baytril be given orally? If so, is the dosage different? He weighs about 9 lbs.

I should add that we deworm on a regular basis, but my first thought was gape worm

 

[Waterfaery]

I don't know how quickly gapeworm could act but that sounds very sudden. Also, if you deworm regularly then worms shouldn't get out of control to that point. I would continue the worming anyway so you can rule it out and also so you finish the course because you don't want to build any resistance. We worm for 5 days, then a break for 10 days, and then repeat for another 5 days.

I'm afraid I don't know about injectable meds. I do know you can give the injectable Baytril orally but again I'm not sure if the dosage is different because I only have the oral one. @KsKingBee and @casportpony would be experts in that so hopefully they can help.

Another thing to consider given how suddenly it came on is some sort of obstruction. If you are able to handle him you could try feeling around and also looking inside his mouth and down his throat. If you do suspect that you could try feeding him a molasses flush but do it at the opposite time of day to the meds so you don't flush them out.

 

[SharW75]

Thank you for your reply! Yes, I actually did consider an obstruction. We gave them some leafy greens yesterday, which they love, and it's possible he ate something too fast, even though I cut it up into pretty small bits. I can catch him, but he's not happy about it, lol. I'll try to grab him again this morning and see if we can see anything in his throat.

We deworm regularly, and actually just finished our deworming regimen for the spring. This guy is fairly new, however, and I know sometimes they can get a wormload that doesn't get taken care of with "normal" routine deworming.

 

[KsKingBee]

Obstruction was my first thought. I once had a hen eat a string that got caught around her tongue and pulled it down her throat. By the time I noticed what had happened, the tongue was mostly cut off. Hopefully, if it was food it has cleared by now. Second I think you are too light on the dosage for deworming. Valbazen has a slightly lower dosage than Safeguard, but I use the same for both. Chicks from two months to the end of the year get 0.5ml, yearlings and mature hens get 2ml and mature cocks get 3ml. Not using enough to kill all the worms will lead to medication resistance. I don't think you have a gape worm problem but a fecal exam will tell you if there are any present.

 

[SharW75]

Thank you! He's almost back to completely normal this morning, so I'm thinking it was an obstruction that he has cleared. I'm definitely not thinking upper respiratory now, thank goodness. I'm going to keep an eye on him obviously, but I think he's out of the woods.

And thank you for the clarification on the dewormer. There are so many different opinions out there. With Valbazen, would you recommend 3 ml for 3-5 days, wait 10 days and repeat, or is 1 3ml dose, wait 10 days and repeat enough?

 

[KsKingBee]

We do our fecals here on site and we have never seen any worms other than round and cecal so a one day treatment followed in ten days is all we do. However if you have capillary, gape, or tape worms then you need to do the five days then again in ten days to get all types of worms. Only Valbazen is water soluble so when we do large pens with lots of birds we will put 25ml per gallon of water and let them finish up what is left on the second day. If I believe that there is a worm load I will make fresh for three days. Again, a second round in ten days.

 

[SharW75]

I'm still dealing with something with this guy. I noticed cankers in his mouth, so I started him on metronidazole and baytril. I went through a course of both of those (5 days of baytril, and 7 days of metronidazole), and the cankers went away, but he was still gaping. Gave him a few days off the meds, and the cankers came right back. I started him on metronidazole again, and now trying tylan 200. He's getting about 1 gram of metronidazole twice a day, and about .4 cc tylan 200 orally twice a day. I'm on day 3 of the tylan 200 and day 4 of the metronidazole. What else can I do? Are my dosages correct?

 

[KsKingBee]

I don't know what a gram of Metronidazole is but when giving it the dosage is 250mg twice per day for five days. The Tylan 200 when injecting it for a mature pea is 1.0ml to 1.5ml per day for five days. When giving it orally you must increase the amount. I only inject SQ, never IM as it causes necrosis in the muscle. So I don't know the proper oral amount. I would consider swabbing him and sending the swab to the state lab for testing to find out the proper course of treatment.