Really worried!! ADVICE NEEDED

[ch1mk1n]

My chicken is eating fine and shows no symptoms of illness however she's sneezing quite a lot. she also does this thing where she shakes her head and her feathers spread out and she turns all puffy. Is she okay?

 

[yakitori]

I'm guessing something is irritating her airway or some kind of respiratory disease. For respiratory you will need to treat with some kind of antibiotics, I've seen Tylan 50 and Denagard recommended... but since I have no personal experience, you should probably wait until someone more knowledgeable drops by...

 

[Isaac 0]

My chicken is eating fine and shows no symptoms of illness however she's sneezing quite a lot. she also does this thing where she shakes her head and her feathers spread out and she turns all puffy. Is she okay?

Welcome to BackYard Chickens.

Besides the sneezing, is the hen exhibiting any other symptoms, such as watery/swollen eyes, nasal discharge, lethargy, etc? When did this start to occur? Have you checked in her mouth for anything abnormal?

If the hen is showing no other symptoms, and it happened over a very short period of time, it is likely the hen got feed dust down her airways. Especially with powdery-type feeds, that can happen. The problem tends to resolve itself.

If you post a video of her sneezing, that would be helpful.

Regarding her puffing-up when she sneezes, that is normal.

 

[ch1mk1n]

Besides the sneezing, is the hen exhibiting any other symptoms, such as watery/swollen eyes, nasal discharge, lethargy, etc? no she doesnt have any of these and it started happening quite a long time ago, maybe around 3-4 months ago?

i dont know if i can catch a video of her sneezing but basically what happens is she shakes her head and lets out "choo" sort of sound except theres not really that much noise other than some "air"? its like if you put your teeth together and you try blowing out of your mouth, except quicker. (i dont know how to describe it) but something like that

 

[Isaac 0]

Besides the sneezing, is the hen exhibiting any other symptoms, such as watery/swollen eyes, nasal discharge, lethargy, etc? no she doesnt have any of these and it started happening quite a long time ago, maybe around 3-4 months ago?

i dont know if i can catch a video of her sneezing but basically what happens is she shakes her head and lets out "choo" sort of sound except theres not really that much noise other than some "air"? its like if you put your teeth together and you try blowing out of your mouth, except quicker. (i dont know how to describe it) but something like that

If you could get a video that would be more than helpful. If you were to guess, how many times would you say she does this in a day? What kind of feed are you using? Is she the only hen doing this? Do you have any pictures of their setup?

 

[ch1mk1n]

she sneezes probably around more than 10 times a day, for the feed i'm not so sure, i only have one hen-, i cant really post pictures but i'll admit her setup isn't the cleanest and we will be moving her very soon into a bigger coop.

i got her from a farm, they where selling chickens so i got two (one of them passed). they gave us all we needed including the bedding and food so we supposed it was okay.

p.s: i dont think we can get any sort of medication because of covid and weve never had a pet so we dont have a local vet either. plus, chickens are illegal in canada.

 

[Isaac 0]

she sneezes probably around more than 10 times a day, for the feed i'm not so sure, i only have one hen-, i cant really post pictures but i'll admit her setup isn't the cleanest and we will be moving her very soon into a bigger coop.

i got her from a farm, they where selling chickens so i got two (one of them passed). they gave us all we needed including the bedding and food so we supposed it was okay.

p.s: i dont think we can get any sort of medication because of covid and weve never had a pet so we dont have a local vet either. plus, chickens are illegal in canada.

It could be a respiratory disease such as IB, since that often cause's very mild symptoms like you're seeing, or it could be environmentally related. You mention your coop is small, and isn't the cleanest (?) I would work on getting her in a bigger coop that's clean and provides plenty of ventilation. Birds have very sensitive respiratory systems so keeping them in high ammonia, dusty coop can problems such as you're seeing.

Correct any environmental problems, and if she's still doing it, I would then start thinking about starting her on an antibiotic which would help/ not cure, if it's respiratory diease-related, but you need to work on the coop.

 

[ch1mk1n]

ah okay, thank you so much!

is this something i should be worried about though? @Isaac 0

 

[Isaac 0]

ah okay, thank you so much!

is this something i should be worried about though?

I don't want to stress you out, but yes, it's something that needs to be dealt with. Keeping birds in a small coop, that isn't cleaned regularly is asking for more serious problems to happen. Unless testing is done, no one here can for sure tell you if it's being caused by environmental problems, or mild respiratory disease, but regardless of the matter, I would first correct your coop problems, and see if that does the trick. If she continues to show symptoms after correcting your coop problems, post back here.

 

[Avid_living]

Mine go through spurts of sneezing and not. Unfortunately, a pair of chicks we bought were not confined we'll enough (my error) and one passed. All of the chicken including my home stock the sneezed.

I used an apple cider vinegar from the mother with a bunch of cut up garlic in their water for a few days and bam, sneezing was gone.

Now, I have bought a different drop for their water called grape seed extract and every few weeks I add it to their water for a few days.

That's the extent of the sneezyness and it comes back but nothing that I worry about. Someone here can mention the disease name.