[cactus]

Hello there,this is my first visit to this forum.My husband and I retired to southern Spain 6 years agon and we live on a small finca in the country surrounded by fields of lettuce and melon and spuds and no near neighbours and it is all very blissful!We keep several breeds of poultry,as we did in Suffolk, and have just encountered a problem we have never seen before.A young,adult maran appeared to look like a turkey,very rounded and walking with its legs apart,just like a fat turkey!When we picked it up,we found that the whole bird was inflated,even the head and neck,due to air trapped under the skin.I used a scalpel and nicked the skin in two places and now,an hour later,the bird is starting to look normal again.Anybody got any info on this condition?Thanks in anticipation.  Cactus

[agapanthus]

Hi Cactus!! I've never heard of this, but am sure someone with more experience will be here soon!!

[Vember]

Hi Cactus

Welcome to the Hen House

Can't help either I'm afraid
I have read somewhere about this happening, but for the life of me can't find the article :?

I'll keep looking but I'm sure someone like Aggy said with more experience will be along shortly

Sarah

[Paddywack]

Hi Cactus and welcome,

Your chicken may have “air puff”. You did right by puncturing the skin; you saved its life by it.

The trouble comes from a wound or abrasion of the lung tissue resulting from violence of some kind, getting trampled on or from cocks fighting.

The treatment is a good nourishing diet, bread and milk in such cases. It is easily digested, and puncture the skin to let the air out.

In slight cases where there is only a little air under the skin it will disappear gradually without treatment


Hope this helps you

[Bodger]

Air between the skin and flesh is caused by a germ known as Clostridium, it will have entered via a cut. The medication of choice is Bacitracin. Since you only have one infected bird, I'd advise that you fill some empty capsules with Bacitracin powder and give one morning and night until the air has gone. Its also a good idea to pierce the skin and let the air out, I'd use a large needle like the ones used for horses or  cattle and just let the air escape.

[cactus]

Thanks to Bodger and Paddywack for their replies.The chicken seems OK now but I will go the vets in the morning and see if they stock something for Clostridium and dose the maran with it. Many thanks. Cactus

[Kate and her Ducks]

Don't know much about chickens but when you get gas under the tissues due to Clostriduim Perfringens it is gas gangrene and usually only occurs in nasty wounds with dead tissue. In humans treatment is with aggressive surgical debridement of all affected tissue  and high doses of antibiotics. Mortality is high so I hope she doesn't have this. If she is better after incision it does sound more like Paddywack's suggestion which is a pneumothorax in humans, not sure how you would treat it in a chicken as in humans a drain is put into the chest to allow the lung to re-expand but they can resolve spontaneously.

Hope she gets better soon with all you are doing for her.

[Bodger]

Surely if it was gas gangerene the poultry keeper would have been done in by the gas.    
You seem to constantly doubt my advice Kate.

[Foxy]

hmmm I think would have to be a deep incision to release air from the chickens air sacs, sounds like the air collects just under the skin?
Very odd but does sound like the advice is working!

[Kate and her Ducks]

Surely if it was gas gangerene the poultry keeper would have been done in by the gas.    
You seem to constantly doubt my advice Kate.

Don't doubt your advice, you are obviously one of the most experienced chicken keepers here but I have quite a lot of experience in my field too (even if it's not chooks which I did explain  :oops: ). Offering an opinion based on my experience does not mean I am questioning yours and I agree with you that the smell with gas gangrene caused by C. Perfringens is foul (only time I have thought I was going to vomit in theatre :shock: ).
Never heard of a pneumothorax in a chicken but do know that they kill bison very quickly as both lungs are in the same cavity and elephants can't get them at all as their pleural cavity is fused. As far as my comparative anatomy goes :roll:

[Big Jen]

Seem to remember that cattle and sheep get something similar that farmers call " blowing up". This was caused by eating too much rich grass.
The treatment was to puncture the skin to let the gas out- cant remember if it smelled or not, it was a long time ago.  
Could there be a connection here? Has the chicken been feasting on too much grass?
BJ

[Bodger]

The condition I have described in dealt with in a number of poultry books and has nothing to do with the lungs.

[sunshinemedic]

My 2p worth:

A Clostridium infection should mean a very sick bird? Untreated by antibiotics it would probably be terminal even with the gas released. Gas gangrene is deadly to humans. I hope the chook deosn't have it....

[hillary b]

I am so glad this subject came up today as I have a small rooster that blew up like a balloon two days ago and I could find nothing on the web about it.  Our local feed store jokingly suggested a pin but they had never heard of it.  Tonight I deflated him with some small incisions with a boning knife and hopefully he will be ok.  It had to be one of the strangest things I have ever done.  Thank you

[nnbreeder]

Well raising Naked Necks I see a vast more amount of exposed skin then the ordinary chicken keeper does. Air under the skin is more common then you think and a 16 or 18ga. needle works wonders on the condition. Usually it is caused by a torn or ruptured air sac and usually heals quickly on it's own.
 The cause of the rupture can vary widely from a rough landing off of a high roost, fighting or even a resp. infection can cause it.
 Most that I have seen is right at the base of the neck on the top of the bird. Why under the skin instead of the body cavity? That's a good question that I've yet to find an answer to.
 With cattle it's called bloat over here and they actually relieve pressure from the stomach of the cow where it's attached to the abdominal wall. There is a tool like a very large needle with a removable stopper. The tool is inserted and then the center is pulled out. When the center is pulled it's best to be already moving as the fermenting grass, spell that manure, comes out at very high speed.  :shock: