- May 8, 2014
- 13
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Hi everyone,
I'm new here - 'long time listener first time caller' so to speak. I've been looking at the forum for years.
In January, I started rescuing unwanted roosters. One of the birds was carrying an illness on his arrival. I will describe the history symptoms:
The rooster was 5 months old when he was given to us.
He is extremely large
The lady who surrendered him said he made 'cute little noises' - he did - he was sneezing, but we didn't actually realise that the noise he was making was a sneeze until about a day later. He is so large, that his sneeze sounded like a kind of dog-yelp.
This was in January - his symptoms were sneezing and open beak breathing, but only when it was hot.
He didn't show any sign of improvement, even after a course of antibiotics (from the vet, not store bought)
A bio-security error led to another rooster becoming ill - we *think* but don't know that he caught the illness from the big bird.
The second rooster had a week of terrible respiratory symptoms, we treated him with anitibiotics (which didn't help), it was touch and go for a while, but he pulled through. Then about a week later, he fell ill again. (Another course of antibiotics) The second time he went down gradually, over two weeks. His comb turned purple and he died. The vet did an autopsy and found a 5cm internal abscess pressing on the rooster's lungs and liver, and determined this was the cause of death. There was no evidence of respiratory illness - mucus etc.
So - back to the first sick rooster. We still don't know if he made the second rooster sick, or if it's a different thing entirely.
The big rooster is clumsy on his legs, as though his body weighs too much. He's pretty slow - easily confused - and moves clumsily, even when dropping his wing / attacking. He often shakes his head from side to side. His breathing has become more laboured, he sneezes more often and still has some clear mucus from his nostrils occasionally. He is now starting to lose his voice / crow, although he could never quite crow properly, it has gotten much worse. He also now has a hernia, from either sneezing or straining to crow.
The vet believes that he has permanent respiratory damage from a virus, and that he will slowly waste away and die, however, he has put on a lot of weight since the vet saw him. I asked the vet about getting testing done, and he felt that whatever the virus was that caused the damage is "probably long gone".
Basically, I wonder about two things:
- Is the virus gone? Is the rooster contagious? - Can anyone think of an illness that may cause these symptoms?
- Is there more we could be doing for him, because it's now May, and he's been sick for so long, still active, still aggressive, he doesn't seem to be 'fading away' at all, but his respiratory symptoms are getting worse as we move into Winter (we're in Australia)
Any thoughts / ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading all of this!!
I'm new here - 'long time listener first time caller' so to speak. I've been looking at the forum for years.
In January, I started rescuing unwanted roosters. One of the birds was carrying an illness on his arrival. I will describe the history symptoms:
The rooster was 5 months old when he was given to us.
He is extremely large
The lady who surrendered him said he made 'cute little noises' - he did - he was sneezing, but we didn't actually realise that the noise he was making was a sneeze until about a day later. He is so large, that his sneeze sounded like a kind of dog-yelp.
This was in January - his symptoms were sneezing and open beak breathing, but only when it was hot.
He didn't show any sign of improvement, even after a course of antibiotics (from the vet, not store bought)
A bio-security error led to another rooster becoming ill - we *think* but don't know that he caught the illness from the big bird.
The second rooster had a week of terrible respiratory symptoms, we treated him with anitibiotics (which didn't help), it was touch and go for a while, but he pulled through. Then about a week later, he fell ill again. (Another course of antibiotics) The second time he went down gradually, over two weeks. His comb turned purple and he died. The vet did an autopsy and found a 5cm internal abscess pressing on the rooster's lungs and liver, and determined this was the cause of death. There was no evidence of respiratory illness - mucus etc.
So - back to the first sick rooster. We still don't know if he made the second rooster sick, or if it's a different thing entirely.
The big rooster is clumsy on his legs, as though his body weighs too much. He's pretty slow - easily confused - and moves clumsily, even when dropping his wing / attacking. He often shakes his head from side to side. His breathing has become more laboured, he sneezes more often and still has some clear mucus from his nostrils occasionally. He is now starting to lose his voice / crow, although he could never quite crow properly, it has gotten much worse. He also now has a hernia, from either sneezing or straining to crow.
The vet believes that he has permanent respiratory damage from a virus, and that he will slowly waste away and die, however, he has put on a lot of weight since the vet saw him. I asked the vet about getting testing done, and he felt that whatever the virus was that caused the damage is "probably long gone".
Basically, I wonder about two things:
- Is the virus gone? Is the rooster contagious? - Can anyone think of an illness that may cause these symptoms?
- Is there more we could be doing for him, because it's now May, and he's been sick for so long, still active, still aggressive, he doesn't seem to be 'fading away' at all, but his respiratory symptoms are getting worse as we move into Winter (we're in Australia)
Any thoughts / ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks for reading all of this!!
