Neck stretching - can it be normal, or is it gape worm?

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One of our Pekins frequently stretches her neck with her mouth open. She doesn't do it constantly, just every now and again, and usually whilst free-ranging. She's been doing it for a few weeks now, but seems fine otherwise. She's definitely not "gasping" for breath, just stretching her neck. I've also seen the other three we have do it, but only very occasionally.
Is it likely this is gapeworm, or could she just be adjusting her crop or getting something she's eaten caught in her throat?
We wormed them with Flubivet a few weeks ago, but as they free range it's impossible to accurately dose them by adding to pellet feed as they all eat different amounts depending on how much they forage!
We're planning to try to give them a second treatment by giving a tiny amount on a grape a few times a day. Again, the dose will be a bit hit and miss, but at least that way we can be sure they all get some!

Chris
 
I'm no expert, but my free ranging Pekins do this every now and then too despite being regularly wormed with flubenvet - particularly after grooming. Maybe their extreme fluffiness gets caught in the back of the throat.
 
TBH if its only occasional I'd not worry overly. My Pekins would often do this and all were fit and well and never suffered any problems with gape worm.

It does seem to be something Pekins tend to do, the neck stretching.
 
If they have been wormed recently with flubenvet, it shouldn't be gapeworm although if the ground they are kept on is heavily used by your birds or there are wild pheasants on the ground they graze, then it is possible they are being re-infected. It only takes a few weeks before eggs coughed up onto the ground become infective and then get back into the bird.

When worming, you shouldn't feed anything else - but foraging should be fine as it is a small percentage of the diet. Flubenvet kills most of the worms present after a couple of days and you administer it for 7 days - so my guess is they should be wormed well in this time, providing they are having their medicated pellets as the main course!

There's an article on Gapeworm on the main site if you are interested.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I must admit I wouldn't be overly worried about the three occasional "neck-stretchers" if it wasn't for the fourth doing it more often (if you watch her for five minutes likelyhood is she'll do it, sometimes two or three times in quick sucession). It looks strange, but as I've never actually seen a bird with gape worm it's hard to know how it "should" look!

With regard to foraging - they only get through 100 - 125g of feed per day between the four of them, which seems low even if they are only 6 months old bantams, which is why I thought they'd be eating a fair bit whilst out and about. There's lots of bugs and dropped fruit around at the moment.

We do get pheasants in the garden, and the frequently gaping one does have a penchant for earth worms (usually swallowed whole!) so I guess in that respect they're a higer risk for gape. Although they do have over an acre between the four of them - yes, they're spoilt!
 
The link that I gave above has a photo of a chicken 'Gaping' as it's called near the 'signs and symptoms' heading.

If it were me, with that low food consumption, I would be tempted to confine them for a week and worm them again, removing all food except for the medicated food. Then I would see if it stops the neck stretching. If it does, you know what it is, if it doesn't, at least you know they have been wormed correctly...

There is the general thought that worming twice a year is sufficient for most but it all depends on the infection pressure - If you have a high infection pressure, the prepatent period (life cycle time from egg - to worm laying eggs again) of 3 to 4 weeks of most common worms means if you don't worm again before this period then your birds will be re-infected again by eggs on the floor and as you say in worms etc... The life cycle continues.

If you have wild pheasants with Gapeworm then they will be passing out thousands of eggs for your birds to pick up... shame you can't leave some medicated feed out for them!

For info, the article from Janssen Animal Health on Flubenvet 1% 60g Packs shows towards the bottom of the page the frequency to worm for different infection pressures - these can be determined by worm counts (such as that offered by post from Chickenvet)

Hope this makes sense!
 
Thanks Tim

Yep - that all makes sense. It is difficult to compare from a still photgraph the action of gaping, though.
If I understand correctly, the gaping is akin to gasping for breath. Our's definitely aren't having breathing difficulties - it's more like they're doing it to help them swallow. To use a human analogy, it's more like the action if you try to make yourself sick by sticking your fingers down your throught. Sorry about that image!
 
Yes, that sounds about right - stretching the neck up and gulping / gasping for air.

Good Luck and let us know how you get on,

T
 
OK, thought I'd give an update.

We wormed all of them again ("by hand" so we could be sure they all got a decent dose) . Doesn't seem to have made a lot of difference. One of them is still neck stretching sometimes. She doesn't do it all the time, but just occasionally does it many times over a period of a few minutes. Personally, because of when she does it I think she could be helping food down her throat or adjusting her crop. She's the greediest of the bunch in that she tends to gulp down bugs and things whole whilst the others are more inclined to peck them into more managable portions! Her crop appears slightly larger than the other's at the end of the day as well.

Guess all we can do is keep an eye on her and ensure she doesn't show any other symptoms. She been perfectly fine so far.
 
What you could do if still unsure, is send off faecal samples to a lab (through a vet) and have tested for worm loads.
 
Thanks for letting us know how you're getting on. They can do a bit of neck stretching if they have gobbled some food.

Lets hope it's nothing serious..

Tim
 
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