My 6 month old Buff Orpington roo has been acting a bit off lately. There are no signs of injury or trauma. He walks around and his walk is sort of dizzy or wobbly. He shakes his head quite a bit also. When I first noticed this a couple of weeks ago, I though maybe he was just going through an "akward" adolesent (sp?) stage as he has really long legs but when I just went out to give them a treat and picked him up his body seemed a bit cool (80 degrees here) and his usually fluffy butt feathers were not as fluffy and were brownish - as if he had dirt in them. He has a voracious appetite and drinks plenty of water. The chickens - none of the others exhibit his symptoms - have a coop with pine shavings for bedding and a run with dirt floor covered with all of their "compost", i.e., leaves, pine shavings, etc. I keep the coop and run treated with DE (food grade) and Sevin Dust for mites - I also have the Sevin in a panty hose toe and dust vent area and under wings every couple of weeks since I don't think I have ever totally gotten rid of the mites. All of the chickens are on Layena feed and are given yogurt each week. The treats that I feed are a bit of scratch every day, bread, veggies, watermelon, cantalope and I put them in a pen on grass at least one day a week. They don't get the veggies and melons every day though. There are no new additions to the flock and as I said, all the others seem to be fine. The roo has no discharge from his eyes or nose and his breathing seems normal. I have never wormed them except for giving them pumpkin seeds and a small amount of the DE in the food. I have just been confused on the different wormers - can't eat eggs for x time, dosage for large birds vs. bantams (I have both in the same coop), etc. If anyone can offer any suggestions, I would appreciate it as I am beginning to be concerned since his body felt cool rather than warm as they usually feel when I pick them up.
