Respiratory infection vs mouth/tongue infection?

[CheriK]

I have a small backyard flock of 5 hens. They are free-range in our smallish back yard during the day, housed in a large for 5 hens coop with pelleted pine bedding at night. My 2-year old Rhode Island hen has been doing poorly the past 2 days. Yesterday, I noticed open-mouthed breathing & making a gurgling noise. She was also holding her neck in a s-shaped curve, with her head tucked close to her body, periodically extending her neck, opening her beak wide, and making a louder gurgling/respiratory sound. Her crop felt empty, pretty unusual for later afternoon. An hour or so later, she seemed to be breathing more normally with her beak closed. Husband put the chickens to bed, so I don't know if her crop was full at bedtime or not. This afternoon, noticed the same behavior but she'd put herself in the coop & breathing seemed more labored. I was able to speak with a veterinarian friend with has some chicken experience, who thought it sounds like some type of respiratory infection & was rather discouraging about her recovery, as in her experience by the time they seem ill they're pretty far along. She'll be around to take a look at Squirrelflight tomorrow evening, but I'm worried about waiting & letting the situation get worse if I can do anything in the meantime.

I was able to get a better look inside her mouth tonight & realized that I couldn't see her tongue at all. Finally, with the help of a flashlight & the 5-year old to wrangle the bird, could just see the tip, but the rest of the tongue is far back in her esophagus. I did some reading around here & decided to try swabbing with Lysterine to see if I could extend the tongue, find any sores or other obvious causes. I can't get the tongue to extend much further. I was able to swab away quite a bit of watery mucous and perhaps some pus. No obvious cankers or wounds. There seems to be more mucous further down and the tissue is perhaps swollen (I haven't had cause to inspect the inside of the mouth this thoroughly before, so am not certain).

I was able to syringe-feed about 20ml of electrolyte solution, and afterwards she drank perhaps another ounce on her own, somewhat frantically. Seemed like removing that mucous helped her to swallow. She also ate a small amount of yogurt, refused the oatmeal I offered. She seems to want to eat, picked up a sunflower seed & a mealworm, but just held them in her beak as if she couldn't figure out how to swallow them. Could her tongue be so far back to protect her airway if her throat's filled with mucous? Is the unwillingness to eat but acting hungry perhaps due to difficulty swallowing? I'm wondering if she might be able to manage some sort of liquid nutrition - anyone have a homemade recipe for this, as I'm unlikely to be able to get to a feed store immediately? I'm thinking about pureeing some of her feed (an organic layer crumble) with the electrolyte solution & see if she'll either eat on her own or if I can syringe feed. I can get a tube to tube feed her tomorrow evening when we see the veterinarian, as well, if it seems necessary.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Cheri

 

[Eggcessive]

Your chicken may have IB, MG, ILT, or Coryza which are the common respiratory diseases. There are mild strains and bad strains of each disease that can cause varied symptoms. Your chicken sound somewhat like ILT, but each one cause cause mucus production. IB and ILT are viruses that don't respond to antibiotics like MG and Coryza do, but giving one may help prevent air sacculitis which is a secondary infection. Tylan 50 injectable is best if you can give an injection into the breast muscle for 5 days (dose is 1 ml for a 5 lb bird, 1/2 ml for under 5 lb.) Gallimycin or Oxytetracycline are meds you can put in the water to treat. She needs to be away from the other 4 chickens to minimize them getting it, but she will be a carrier if she survives. Here is a good list of the common diseases with symptoms if you would like to read about them: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[CheriK]

Thanks, Eggcessive. Since she's got no nasal or ocular discharge, I'm hopeful she's got the mild form of whatever she's picked up! She looks a bit perkier today, actually drinking water on her own, and less mucous in her throat. We blended some layer crumbles w/ electrolyte solution and were able to syringe feed about an ounce of that plus a couple ounces of just electrolyte solution. Not enough for maintenance, I know, but as much as she'd tolerate at one time. She really wanted to eat some scrambled egg, but just didn't seem able to manage swallowing even the smallest pieces. I can get a chicken respiratory panel run at the local animal health/food safety lab for under $10, so I plan on trying to get some blood this evening and treat specifically. And it's well worth $10 to know how worried I need to be about my other girls!

 

[Eggcessive]

I can get a chicken respiratory panel run at the local animal health/food safety lab for under $10, so I plan on trying to get some blood this evening and treat specifically. And it's well worth $10 to know how worried I need to be about my other girls!

My goodness, that is a handy thing to have around locally. I take a potato masher to my scrambled eggs, and try not to overcook them to make them easier to eat and swallow. Raw egg mixed with some feed works too.