A mature Gang Gang hen was presented with open mouth breathing and weight loss. The owner was pretty sure she had Aspergillosis and asked if it was possible to treat.

Aspergillus is a fungus that gets in the airways of birds, particularly Gang gangs and starts to grow. It stops the bird from being able to absorb oxygen properly so they start to breathe heavily. Treatment is very difficult because getting the drugs to the site of infection is nearly impossible. In my experience most of these Aspergillus birds die despite our best efforts.

In this case we anaesthetised the bird and scoped her to have a look at the air sacs. Certainly the air sacs are pretty grotty with a lot of inflammation and patches of dried pus on the surface, but there was no evidence of Aspergillus. At this stage we are treating her with antibiotics both by injection and by nebulisation. The nebuliser is used to try and get drugs to the surface of the air sacs.

The whole process of treating birds in hospital is stressful and in a bird with poor respiratory function we must be careful not to handle them too much.

After three days of nebulisation the bird had stabilised so we stopped the nebuliser and continued the injections.

The bird went home some days later and at this stage, although she is not normal she is at least back in the aviary.