Unsecure chicken perches

[skye]

One of our ex-barn chickens is suddenly standing still, and with every breath having to elongate her neck and open her beak wide and upwards to breathe. It sounds like she may have something stuck as you can hear the airway is constricted although she is not wheezing. It seems like a lot of effort for every breath and she is not interested in anything else except trying to breathe.

 

What should I do, I feel helpless.

 

skye x

[jellykelly]

Is she definately struggling to breath. Does it look like a big yawn?

 

My chickens do the big yawn gape occassionally if they've been making a pig of themselves. It's just them readjusting the contents of their crop.

 

If it's not that, you could try and encourage her to drink by dipping her beak into water, see if that helps? Gently tip her up and massage her crop and rub her neck to see if there's anything lodged there?

[hippy chick]

Have you wormed her recently?

[skye]

Thanks guys. We got Zilla straight down to the vets as she was in discomfort and couldn't breathe normally. The vet examined and x-rayed her but there was no foreign body stuck. She felt that as Zilla was struggling so much to breathe that she wouldn't last long enough for any potential medication to take effect. So while she was under anaesthesia from the examination, she euthanased her.

 

Very sad, she had shown no signs of illness previously, but the vet said that she may have had something growing or developing for a while that had just reached a critical point. I find it difficult to accept that she was ill, and keep wondering if she was stung by one of the many wasps hanging around our garden at the moment, or something like that which caused the sudden breathing problems.

 

She had a lovely eight months of retirement with us and experienced life as a free and loved chicken before she went up to the great feathery eglu in the sky.

 

skye x

[hippy chick]

Oh dear I'm so sorry.

But you did the right thing and at least she had a lovely 8 months with you.

 

RIP Zilla, sweet dreams little angel

[majuka]

So sorry for your loss.x

[Plum]

I'm sorry. Lucky girl having that time with you.

[Tutti Frutti]

RIP Zilla

 

Skye, we feel your pain too - we lost Zilla's barn-sister Ursula 3 weeks ago ( But we have to console ourselves in knowing that they sure knew how to make up for lost time and crammed more chickeny fun into those 8 short months than they did in the horrendous 18 they had locked in the barn {soft smile}.

 

I hope you're OK Skye... I am so so sorry that this had to happen but glad she had you to shower love on her as her time approached (I'm sure Ursula knew we were there with her at the end).

[skye]

Thank you very much everyone. Tutti, so sorry to hear about Ursula too, how awful for you. Hope the you and the rest of your flock are starting to recover. As you say though. These girls had a lovely retirement and we knew they may only have a few months of freedom. How sweet, lovely and friendly they were.

 

skye x