Respiratory symptoms but no drainage, no gapeworm, no other sick chickens?

[bangarain]

I have this ~one year old hen who has been sneezing intermittently for the past couple of weeks, but wasn’t able to identify which hen it was and get my hands on her until a couple of days ago because she wouldn’t sneeze in front of me I have no idea what’s going on with her. She sounds raspy, she’s gaping and sneezing, and stroking her throat makes her cough/sneeze/choke, but I can’t actually find anything wrong with her. Her nostrils are clear, she doesn’t have any drainage, and none of her flockmates have any symptoms. She has no external parasites (she is just looking raggedly bc I have a pair of Orloffs who love to pull cheeks and beards, or at least I think it’s them because they’re the only ones with intact face fluff), and when I shone a light through her throat to check for gapeworm I didn’t see anything (beyond some inflammation? I’m not sure). Her throat looks clear.

Any ideas would be great. I’m ordering some vetrx poultry remedy as some supplemental support, but beyond that I’m not sure what to do.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

sneezing intermittently for the past couple of weeks, but wasn’t able to identify which hen it was and get my hands on her until a couple of days ago because she wouldn’t sneeze in front of me I have no idea what’s going on with her. She sounds raspy, she’s gaping and sneezing, and stroking her throat makes her cough/sneeze/choke, but I can’t actually find anything wrong with her.

Does she have a coating on her tongue? It's hard to tell in the video.

What's her crop like? Is it emptying?

The coughing/sneezing is worse when you handle her and press the crop?

But, if you are not handling/rubbing her throat/crop, she only sneeze every once in a while...

Look inside the beak again for any canker or lesions.
Check to make sure her crop is emptying overnight.

 

[bangarain]

Sorry for the late reply - I have her isolated now and confirmed her crop is emptying normally. Her coughing and sneezing has resolved, so I thought she was improving, but yesterday I noticed a fair amount of swelling in her cheek and found a lesion in the soft tissue along her beak. Yesterday I was able to dislodge the external bit - seen in the pictures attached below - and today I was able to remove most of the pus that caused the swelling under her eye.

I plan on picking up some sterile saline tomorrow to flush her cheek, but beyond that I’m unsure what to do. Is it possible to ID the cause of the infection without access to a microscope?

Looking closer now at the video I took I can see that she did have yellow patches in the same areas but I failed to recognize them for what they were at the time.

I didn’t see any other lesions in her mouth or throat today, but I’m going to check again tomorrow in case I missed anything. (She was very unhappy with me and I want to give her a break)

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Did you detect a bad odor coming from the beak or lesion?
If there's a bad odor, then it may be Canker. Metronidazole or Acidified Copper Sulfate can be used to treat, but Canker is contagious, so be aware of that.

Acidified Copper Sulfate can be used to treat thrush and other things, so that may be your best bet if you are not sure it's Canker.

Getting some testing is always a good idea that way you can give the correct treatment and know what you are dealing with.

 

[bangarain]

Did you detect a bad odor coming from the beak or lesion?
If there's a bad odor, then it may be Canker. Metronidazole or Acidified Copper Sulfate can be used to treat, but Canker is contagious, so be aware of that.

Acidified Copper Sulfate can be used to treat thrush and other things, so that may be your best bet if you are not sure it's Canker.

Getting some testing is always a good idea that way you can give the correct treatment and know what you are dealing with.

No, there’s not much of an odor coming from her mouth at all. If anything she smells slightly sweet

 

[Wyorp Rock]

No, there’s not much of an odor coming from her mouth at all. If anything she smells slightly sweet

It may be thrush then if it smells a little sweet.