PLEASE help, please please please!
Skye is a silver spangled spitzhauben purchased from ideal poultry May 5th, 2010, making her only 2 years old.
I just walked out for an evening treat feeding to find Skye not present - HIGHLY unusual considering she leads the pack screaming with Pumpkin (faverolle) and Holly (sussex), her two best and older friends. I was terrified, I knew she just had to be dead or seriously ill, not welcoming me to the chickenhouse. I found her underneath in the "spa", hunched over, picking her head up then lowering it again, like she was sleepy. It was obvious her breathing was a little labored, but not gasping for air. I knew something was wrong, took her inside, immediately give her 1/2cc of Tylan 50 injectable orally. Afterwards, she tried to talk to me, but it was gargled. Holding her up to my ear, her heartbeat was faster than normal, and I could hear some rattling. I looked in her mouth - horrified to see some sort of lesion, yellow in main color, with black dots on her right side, large enough to displace her tongue. Where the lesion stopped, the healthy tissue was extremely red/irritated but not swollen. Her breath STINKS and there is some sort of foam in the back of her mouth, but she doesn't appear to be inhaling it. The eye on that side isn't swollen, but she is keeping it shut. Her pupils are dilated but eyes are clear. I have her in the bathroom, where it's dark. Her comb/wattles are bright red but she's in what I've come to call the "death position" - her tail is drooped.
ETA 8:23 -6 time, she appears to be having extreme difficulty breathing, sneezing up to three times in a row, gasping for breath. Airway sounds restricted by something, what I have no clue.
Only 5 days ago, the alpha hen, Tau'i passed from suspected internal laying/ovarian cancer (thanks, speckledhen)- she was 7 years old. However, no other birds showed any signs of illness. I noticed after burying Tau'i and finishing her footprint baking that when sky come out, she didn't talk. This is really odd but nothing else was off; color was good, she looked normal, acted normal, had been eating and drinking, ate some watermelon, and had been laying normally. So 90% completely normal, then the same way yesterday. This has happened TODAY.
They're kept in a well ventilated coop with a fan on 24/7 to help cool them off, well over 3sq feet of space per bird, free range of layer pellets and water, straw in the coop, fed treats quite often - nothing rotten.
No birds have been introduced into the flock since her bunch was put in. We do have growing keets, but they are kept away from the chooks in a separate house and do not free range on the birds land. I don't handle the keets or their feeders at ALL - and I am the primary caretaker of the chooks, so far as I know, nobody has handled the keets then the birds directly. They were brought on the property a week ago.
ETA: All other birds are behaving completely normal. No signs of illness whatsoever. Combs are red, laying is normal, so is food/water intake.
Skye is a silver spangled spitzhauben purchased from ideal poultry May 5th, 2010, making her only 2 years old.
I just walked out for an evening treat feeding to find Skye not present - HIGHLY unusual considering she leads the pack screaming with Pumpkin (faverolle) and Holly (sussex), her two best and older friends. I was terrified, I knew she just had to be dead or seriously ill, not welcoming me to the chickenhouse. I found her underneath in the "spa", hunched over, picking her head up then lowering it again, like she was sleepy. It was obvious her breathing was a little labored, but not gasping for air. I knew something was wrong, took her inside, immediately give her 1/2cc of Tylan 50 injectable orally. Afterwards, she tried to talk to me, but it was gargled. Holding her up to my ear, her heartbeat was faster than normal, and I could hear some rattling. I looked in her mouth - horrified to see some sort of lesion, yellow in main color, with black dots on her right side, large enough to displace her tongue. Where the lesion stopped, the healthy tissue was extremely red/irritated but not swollen. Her breath STINKS and there is some sort of foam in the back of her mouth, but she doesn't appear to be inhaling it. The eye on that side isn't swollen, but she is keeping it shut. Her pupils are dilated but eyes are clear. I have her in the bathroom, where it's dark. Her comb/wattles are bright red but she's in what I've come to call the "death position" - her tail is drooped.
ETA 8:23 -6 time, she appears to be having extreme difficulty breathing, sneezing up to three times in a row, gasping for breath. Airway sounds restricted by something, what I have no clue.
Only 5 days ago, the alpha hen, Tau'i passed from suspected internal laying/ovarian cancer (thanks, speckledhen)- she was 7 years old. However, no other birds showed any signs of illness. I noticed after burying Tau'i and finishing her footprint baking that when sky come out, she didn't talk. This is really odd but nothing else was off; color was good, she looked normal, acted normal, had been eating and drinking, ate some watermelon, and had been laying normally. So 90% completely normal, then the same way yesterday. This has happened TODAY.
They're kept in a well ventilated coop with a fan on 24/7 to help cool them off, well over 3sq feet of space per bird, free range of layer pellets and water, straw in the coop, fed treats quite often - nothing rotten.
No birds have been introduced into the flock since her bunch was put in. We do have growing keets, but they are kept away from the chooks in a separate house and do not free range on the birds land. I don't handle the keets or their feeders at ALL - and I am the primary caretaker of the chooks, so far as I know, nobody has handled the keets then the birds directly. They were brought on the property a week ago.
ETA: All other birds are behaving completely normal. No signs of illness whatsoever. Combs are red, laying is normal, so is food/water intake.
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