Canker HELP NEEDED! Don't want to cull him. :(

real sorry u r going through this.

It's possible there could be resistance to the flagyl or it might be wet fowl pox. A swab test by a vet could help identify which it is. Here's a link to other meds to treat canker.

http://fowlfacts.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=afflictiondiseaseff&action=display&thread=1220

I am going through this right now, treated with FishZole and seemed to work at first, then she crashed again.  The canker comes from pigeons, it doesn't live long in the environment but does well in water or moist food.  I switched her over to Medizole, which has Ronidazole 10%.   She seems to be doing better on that one and that is a newer drug from what I understand.  Has a wide safety margin.  If you need dosage let me know.   Hopefully that won't build resistance but if it does, I have another one coming in the mail - not in the zole family and kinda expensive.  I would suggest trying one of the other four zoles, and I learned you have to keep switching them as they become resistant.  I've also been giving her ProBios to try and avoid any secondary infect.  Watch her drinking - I read one where they cured it by pulling the water and only offering it 2x/day - looks like that's what I'll have to do otherwise she drools it all over and her crop becomes a water balloon.  You have an advantage in that she has not lost a lot of weight.  Get on top of it and stay there, it is a long treatment.  (My fight is still ongoing)....  BTW, don't try to remove the lesions.  When they are ready to, they will fall off on their own.  In removing them you could open a sore and she will bleed or worse yet, leaves it open to more infection for something else.  Has to heal from the inside.  I tried all the iodine stuff - everything.  Does nothing but stress her out.  No advantage gained there by doing that.

What about Gentian Violet?  When my son had thrush as a baby, they told me to use a cotton swap to dab it on his tongue.  It was the stuff you pick up in the pharmacy isle.  thrush is a fungus, and it almost sounds like the canker is a fungus too.  

http://www.infobarrel.com/Uses_of_Gentian_Violet

I was going to pick up some Genitian violet stuff in case she comes down with thrush, she hasn't so far.  Canker is caused by a protozoa, which is actually an animal!  It has one cell only with flagella, not the same as candida, which is a yeast  (thrush)   Another confusion exists on pox, b/c pox is viral and treated completely different.  The sores that pox causes might be called canker, but that's only cuz canker is a catch all term for a sore.  The type of canker here is called trichomonas and is usually t. gallinae.  Humans get it too, but in the form of t. vaginalis.

Canker is a protozoa. The type of canker that humans get is a protozoa but is a different strain than chickens get...it usually occurs in immunocompromised humans resulting from a secondary infection of some sort.

Here again are the treatments...Q&A about poultry canker as well:

http://www.pet-informed-veterinary-advice-online.com/trichomonas.html