Resolved: Something stuck? Chicken wheezing.

[Winderdear]

My pullet Helmi is making a wheezing noise. She has a very deep voice normally, and the weezing sounds deep rather than high pitched. She doesn’t do it all the time, but when she’s excited or moves around a lot it gets worse. It was pretty constant earlier and has gotten less frequent over time. It stops when she’s calm and not exerting herself.

She has sneezed lightly once or twice, but otherwise she’s acting completely normally. She isn’t tired, there’s no mucus or discharge of any kind.

I took her to the vet and they had no answers, just offered steroids or antibiotics which I didn’t take.

I was reading online and decided to try some coconut oil in case she had something stuck in her throat. She pooped twice since the wheezing began, and she has an interest in eating and foraging. She occasionally looks like she’s trying to stretch her neck or shift her crop around. She initially wasn’t making any normal chicken noises, now she is talking a lot and each sound is followed by a wheeze.

She’s currently sitting in my lap quietly, but alertly. She also is preening, and occasionally when she shakes out her feathers the wheezing gets loud again, like she’s aggravated something.

Is this stridor?

I will try and get a video later if it persists.

*Edited because I apparently can’t spell “wheeze” correctly.

 

[Winderdear]

Found this post, and her wheezing sounds just like the video:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/emergency-stridor-help.1422324/#post-23383380

 

[Winderdear]

Seems all better now

 

[Eggcessive]

So glad that it was stridor and it went away. It is common, especially after eating voraciously when they get a piece stuck in the throat. It usually clears with drinking water, and a cough or sneeze within a few hours. I had a hen who did this a few times over several days, and then she quit having the episodes.