Hello everyone,
I have been reading this forum for over 10 years and it helped me a lot. Now it's the first time I am making a post because I'm at lost. I feel like there are so many possibile causes for this problem and I hope someone can figure it out.
I have a hen that loses her breath in the mornings. She's breathing with an open beak, letargic and not moving, closed eyes, wings droped. It goes for like 20 minutes and then she's back to normal for the rest of day. It started at the beggining of September with a crisis like this, then she had another one a week later and now it's happening almost every day, some days worse than the others. Only once it happened later in the day. I also noticed her dropings have more clear liquid than usual. I gave her antibiotics(oxytetracycline and neomycin combo) but didn't work and then dewormed(flubendazole) to rule out gapeworm but she's still the same.
I will add the basic info and then go in detalil with her full medical history.
Age, breed and sex:
She's a female bantam.I dont know her exact age, I have her for almost 4 years, but I think she was pretty young when I got her from someone I knew. She used to live in a crowded space with pigeons, ducks
Diet:
I give her layer feeds mixed with cereals as per instructions (40% 60%) and various treats like grapes and berries, walnuts (her favourite), yougurt, and ocasionally a bit of cooked meat
Housing:
Well ventilated coop. She uses the steps at evening but in the morning she jumps (around 5ft). I'm mentioning in case the flying effort can be somehow related to her morning crises. Also free range under supervision in my yard.
Medical history:
When I got her 4 years ago she came with clogged nostrils. I tried to clean them and but keep filling with a lot of pus daily. I took her to the vet and they told me to put betadine in her nostrils but that did nothing. Then I tried different antibiotics and the one that finally worked was a drug combo including metronitazole. The problem stoped but her nostrils remained deformed. I am not sure if she can use them or if she's mouth breathing.
I've read somewere that metronidazole can cause egg problems so I am now wondering if that happened to her. She was never a big layer and she seemed to have a hard time laying an egg. But I don't know if it's normal for a hens struggle, she is the only hen that ever came to lay her eggs in my lap so that's how I noticed lol. This year I don't think she laid any egg.
I have read that reproductive issues can also cause respiratory distress so I thought it's worth mentioning this too.
I have noticed in the spring some gaping and some sort of hiccup sound so I gaved her some antibiotics then (tylosin and sulfadimethoxine combo) but I don't think it helped as she keept doing that from time to time. After that I didn't noticed unusual until the breathing problems in the mornings started in September.
I am really scared of heart and circulatory diseases (I think her feet are colder than usual) but there are so many other possibile causes.
So what do you think it most likely is?
Thanks to everybody who took their time to read my post! Any answer would be highly apreciated!
I have been reading this forum for over 10 years and it helped me a lot. Now it's the first time I am making a post because I'm at lost. I feel like there are so many possibile causes for this problem and I hope someone can figure it out.
I have a hen that loses her breath in the mornings. She's breathing with an open beak, letargic and not moving, closed eyes, wings droped. It goes for like 20 minutes and then she's back to normal for the rest of day. It started at the beggining of September with a crisis like this, then she had another one a week later and now it's happening almost every day, some days worse than the others. Only once it happened later in the day. I also noticed her dropings have more clear liquid than usual. I gave her antibiotics(oxytetracycline and neomycin combo) but didn't work and then dewormed(flubendazole) to rule out gapeworm but she's still the same.
I will add the basic info and then go in detalil with her full medical history.
Age, breed and sex:
She's a female bantam.I dont know her exact age, I have her for almost 4 years, but I think she was pretty young when I got her from someone I knew. She used to live in a crowded space with pigeons, ducks
Diet:
I give her layer feeds mixed with cereals as per instructions (40% 60%) and various treats like grapes and berries, walnuts (her favourite), yougurt, and ocasionally a bit of cooked meat
Housing:
Well ventilated coop. She uses the steps at evening but in the morning she jumps (around 5ft). I'm mentioning in case the flying effort can be somehow related to her morning crises. Also free range under supervision in my yard.
Medical history:
When I got her 4 years ago she came with clogged nostrils. I tried to clean them and but keep filling with a lot of pus daily. I took her to the vet and they told me to put betadine in her nostrils but that did nothing. Then I tried different antibiotics and the one that finally worked was a drug combo including metronitazole. The problem stoped but her nostrils remained deformed. I am not sure if she can use them or if she's mouth breathing.
I've read somewere that metronidazole can cause egg problems so I am now wondering if that happened to her. She was never a big layer and she seemed to have a hard time laying an egg. But I don't know if it's normal for a hens struggle, she is the only hen that ever came to lay her eggs in my lap so that's how I noticed lol. This year I don't think she laid any egg.
I have read that reproductive issues can also cause respiratory distress so I thought it's worth mentioning this too.
I have noticed in the spring some gaping and some sort of hiccup sound so I gaved her some antibiotics then (tylosin and sulfadimethoxine combo) but I don't think it helped as she keept doing that from time to time. After that I didn't noticed unusual until the breathing problems in the mornings started in September.
I am really scared of heart and circulatory diseases (I think her feet are colder than usual) but there are so many other possibile causes.
So what do you think it most likely is?
Thanks to everybody who took their time to read my post! Any answer would be highly apreciated!