black5wann
In the Brooder
I have a rooster who has had some symptoms of an upper respiratory illness (I think). Possibly something like coryza from my amateur research.
He shakes his head and opens his mouth especially in the morning and at night. Sometimes his eyes are watery. And he has definite ear wax blockage. This has been going on for about a month. I was hoping it’d resolve on its own. The weird thing is sometimes he seems perfectly healthy, he still is eating, crowing, mating, poop is normal, etc. But then there’s moments where he seems very bothered with the head shaking and mouth opening. Sometimes when he’s in the coop and I listen close to his mouth I can hear his breath, not heavy wheezing, but audible breaths - I don’t hear this all the time though.
We cleaned the coop and stopped using pdz dust as we thought maybe it was just a dust thing. But he is still has the symptoms after just using pine shaving (and we clean the coop every day). We’ve been cleaning his ears with hydrogen peroxide and tried feeding him vetrx as well as various other boosters like ropa poultry and nutridrench. Rest of flock doesn’t have any of these symptoms.
We scheduled a vet visit, but it doesn’t specialize in chickens - just an exotic animal hospital (seems to be more bunnies and such). Couldn’t find a chicken specific vet in Orlando area.
My question is, is it worth visiting a vet like this? I’m afraid it will cause him more stress than good, but if it’s something that has an easy treatment I’d like to know. I’m not sure at what point to resort to something like this as much of the time he seems absolutely fine. Any advice on this as well as other treatment/diagnoses is much appreciated.
He shakes his head and opens his mouth especially in the morning and at night. Sometimes his eyes are watery. And he has definite ear wax blockage. This has been going on for about a month. I was hoping it’d resolve on its own. The weird thing is sometimes he seems perfectly healthy, he still is eating, crowing, mating, poop is normal, etc. But then there’s moments where he seems very bothered with the head shaking and mouth opening. Sometimes when he’s in the coop and I listen close to his mouth I can hear his breath, not heavy wheezing, but audible breaths - I don’t hear this all the time though.
We cleaned the coop and stopped using pdz dust as we thought maybe it was just a dust thing. But he is still has the symptoms after just using pine shaving (and we clean the coop every day). We’ve been cleaning his ears with hydrogen peroxide and tried feeding him vetrx as well as various other boosters like ropa poultry and nutridrench. Rest of flock doesn’t have any of these symptoms.
We scheduled a vet visit, but it doesn’t specialize in chickens - just an exotic animal hospital (seems to be more bunnies and such). Couldn’t find a chicken specific vet in Orlando area.
My question is, is it worth visiting a vet like this? I’m afraid it will cause him more stress than good, but if it’s something that has an easy treatment I’d like to know. I’m not sure at what point to resort to something like this as much of the time he seems absolutely fine. Any advice on this as well as other treatment/diagnoses is much appreciated.