Ruptured air sac not healing

[Magpie2]

I already had a forum going for this but it hasn’t got much attention and this problem is still persisting.

I have a baby chicken with a ruptured air sac which I have been treating for WEEKS now and it just isn’t healing. We went to a vet first thing and she said to just drain the air a few times and it should heal within a week or so. It’s not healed.
The chick was two weeks old when we noticed she was inflating and she’s four weeks today. She hasn’t showed any signs of struggle in any way apart from her side becoming grossly inflated. She eats, she drinks, she poops, and she crawls all over her foster mom, she’s very happy and healthy apart from being a tiny balloon.

This is a picture from when we first noticed it.

We’ve been trying different things to keep the inflation down. Lately she’s been wearing a little vet wrap bodysuit since I discovered that the swelling would slowly go down as she breathes as long as there’s pressure on it.

Picture of her at 3.5 weeks in her first wrap. You can see some swelling on her leg starting.

Picture of baby at four weeks in her wrap.
I’ve had to slowly add to the wrap as well, when I restricted the inflation around the torso it just started stretching the skin in other places like her leg and bum. I have noticed when I change her wrappings, the skin that was compressed is not as stretched out but that’s about the only improvement we’ve seen so far.

Does anyone have any idea what I can do to fix this? I’m running out of ideas and I’m seriously worried that as soon as she starts to actually decline, she might crash and we could loose her.

 

[nuthatched]

You may have to come to grips that this might not be fixable. I'm very sorry
She may have a permanent hole somewhere.

 

[Magpie2]

You may have to come to grips that this might not be fixable. I'm very sorry
She may have a permanent hole somewhere.

A permanent hole? Where do you mean? A tear in the air sac or something like a stent in her side?

I thankfully have the vet’s number and have been keeping her updated but she’s not familiar with tears like this that just won’t heal. She said that we could possibly put a stent in but she’s a farm vet so a baby chick is too small for her to really operate on and she’d need to refer me to a specialist (most likely an exotic avian vet), I know where she’d likely send us and they’re excellent, I take my parakeets to them, but it would mean antibiotics and a hole in her side. She’s so young, I really want to avoid any surgery or antibiotics if possible.

 

[Magpie2]

It looks like I was on the right track all along. It took much longer than it was supposed to but we got there and she’s been better for about a week with no signs of relapse.
We made a pretty elaborate wrap that covered the whole side that was inflated as well as the leg on that side and the bum while being careful not to cover the vent. We changed the wrap every 3-4 days and made sure to drain the air before wrapping her. Eventually when we went to change her wrap, she wasn’t inflated anymore, not even loose skin where she had been. We kept her wrapped for a few more days just to be safe and now she runs (and flies!) free from her purple restraints!

 

[FunClucks]

So glad she made it!!! Hope she doesn't relapse. Crossing fingers for you both!!!

 

[Magpie2]

So glad she made it!!! Hope she doesn't relapse. Crossing fingers for you both!!!

This sort of thing is usually easy to fix and doesn’t relapse. The main difference with her was that it took an absurdly long time and extra steps to keep the inflation down. I think she’s going to be just fine now. She’s always been very energetic and healthy despite her issue, she seems like a pretty strong bird, despite starting off as the smallest chicken I’ve ever seen.