Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hi everyone, your usual person freaking out following his ILT episode. One of my meaties is doing a classic ilt syndrome, extending its neck and gasping, BuT! I only observed it twice, once was straight under the heat lamp. Immediately took it outside in the duck pen where it been happily running around. I hear no wheezing, see no discharge and the eyes are bright and open. So my question is, could something else be causing this behaviour ? The have to make a decision quickly because we have No other place to hold her besides the meaties pen. For reference, the bird is a frey slow growth meat bird.

I have seen chicks do that when too hot. How old are they? And how hot is their brooder? My only guess sorry.

Maybe it had trouble swallowing something. I wouldnt worry unless it does it repeatedly. The other thing that can cause that is gapeworm....but honestly i have only heard of gapeworm from one person in my many years of chicken craziness and that was in a turkey....

What are your housing situation like .. high levels of ammonia will give similar respitory symptoms with out discharge .. just a thought
TL

If he's running around, eating and drinking as usual, and no coughing or head shaking, I wouldn't worry quite so much. A bird with a mild form will be tired and off-feed, a bird with more severe disease will head shake violently when they're trying to clear a blood clot. The gaspy ones will have yellowish plaques at the opening to their lungs...easily seen if you want to pry someone's mouth open and have a look. Could just be too warm too...meaties are little furnaces and need a LOT less heat than other chicks, for a much shorter be period of time.

Could it have been choking on a shaving or piece of whatever is on the floor?

I went with the ammonia answer. There was a faint smell indeed. Changed the bedding over today, added some stall dry as well. Thanks everyone

I can completely understand why you would freak out.

Zlorfik wrote: ↑

Sun May 21, 2017 7:03 pm

I went with the ammonia answer. There was a faint smell indeed. Changed the bedding over today, added some stall dry as well. Thanks everyone

How's your ventilation in the coop ? Especially overnite .

The ''coop'' is a barn. So I have a couple of ventilation options, really, opening barn doors. which I normally do at night. THe other end of the barn also has windows, I leave them ajar. I may be installing more windows this year so I can leave them open. They are happier now.