Case of Canker? How Best to Treat? If not canker, then what?

[Chicken Keith]

I just dosed one-fourth teaspoon of copper sulfate, plus 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar into 1 gallon of drinking water. The bird, a white marans roo (4 yrs old), has this posture:

Here is his son, for comparison with a healthy bird.

Here are photos of what I believe are canker:

I had been giving Tylan 200 orally by mouth, about .5ml every other day. No change. I stopped that last week. Feeding him a mash seems to make the situation worse. Right now he's on pellets. But I imagine that's pretty bloody painful. I will begin feeding him fruit yogurt.

Thinking he was in pain I bought some infant Tylenol and dosed him 0.2ml. It hasn't hurt him, but it doesn't seem to help.

I also bought him some infant (human) liquid multivitamin supplement called Poly-Vi-Sol. He seemed to really hate that about 2 weeks ago, but he was losing so much weight (breast bone feels sharp and clammy) so I forced some more of that, about 1 ml only, and he seemed to like it this time.

Never dealt with canker before if that's what this is. The internet implies to use apple cider vinegar. I did that once for about 5 days. Saw no improvement. The bird is isolated from other birds: I had a turkey who was really bullying him but turkey can't bother him any more.

My chickens are not pets really (I have peacocks which I treat as my pets and I'll spend $200-300 at a vet for), they are breeders for show (no, I don't show my birds----yet) and they provide eggs...meat is good but too little of it to make butchering them worth the trouble. I will also slaughter a bird if it's hurting too much to keep suffering so I will put it out of its misery. But I feel canker isn't threatening enough to slaughter the bird and I'm trying to give him a chance to live.

Appreciate any thoughts. Sorry to sound terse and harsh and inhumanly robotic in this posting, I'm a just the facts kind of guy, at this point.

 

[Eggcessive]

Is his comb and watttles as dark as they look in the first photo? Tylenol is not good for chickens or birds. Aspirin is okay, (81 mg twice daily,) and ibuprofen in the correct dose is alright. It could be canker inside the beak. How does it smell? Canker is a protozoa, and is treated with metronidazole 250 mg daily for 5 days. Fish Zole available online can be ordered here:
https://www.allivet.com/p-2393-fish...IqogY60El9JRHqlAIODZhNBcpOy1QORRoCyiYQAvD_BwE

You might try mixing some feed with warm water to make it soft, and try some cooked egg as well. Acidified copper sulfate can be used in the water to help prevent an outbreak for 3 days a month 1/4 tsp per gallon of water. Here is a link for that:
https://www.jefferspet.com/products...tBpo4hmDGwhokv2j6OmAAddhIkE2ZuQhoCZw8QAvD_BwE

 

[Eggcessive]

Scroll down this link for info on canker:
http://www.chickenvet.co.uk/health-and-common-diseases/digestive-problems/index.aspx

I would disinfect all feeders and waterers with 10% bleach water, and prevent the birds from drinking out of any puddles. Canker is carried by pigeons.

 

[Chicken Keith]

I would disinfect all feeders and waterers with 10% bleach water, and prevent the birds from drinking out of any puddles. Canker is carried by pigeons.

Thanks, I'll try your suggestion. We've had such a wet spell here in the mid-south US, that one day about 6 weeks ago, I dumped all the wet rain soaked food (soggy layer pellets) onto a large tarp, out in the sun, in the middle of the yard. My chickens don't roam free unless I let them out with my supervision. Some chickens would scratch around in that wet mucky, sun drying, feed and some would even eat of it, but when the feed clearly began to sour I threw it all away. My rooster developed his malady after that. I don't have pigeons but I have a tom turkey and 5 peas. who co-habitate with the chickens. I don't really have a lot of chickens either only 15 birds total. It's possible doves came to eat from that pile of feed. I was trying to avoid wasting chicken feed but now I wonder if my tight-wad nature contributed to a worse situation. Live and learn, painfully.

 

[Eggcessive]

Usually canker smells rotten, at least from what others have described. Fowl pox can also cause yellow lesions or plaques inside the beak, and that type is called wet pox. There is no treatment for wet pox, but if it were pox, you would have seen some scabs on combs, faces, and wattles. Looking back at one of your pictures, it might be pox. Here is a link about pox, a virus spread by mosquitoes:
https://the-chicken-chick.com/fowl-pox-prevention-treatmen/

 

[micstrachan]

What do you mean by you dosed 1/4 tsp copper sulfate? It should be 1/4 tsp poultry grade acidified copper sulfate per gallon of drinking water, not a direct dose to the bird.

 

[Eggcessive]

I think they meant 1/4 tsp per gallon of acidified copper sulfate, along with ACV. But it shouldn’t be used with ACV or it might change the structure. I might be wrong about what they meant though.

 

[Abriana]

I have had canker in my birds before, but not this extreme! I have used oregano oil to treat it. Soak the tip of a q-tip in oregano oil and swab it on. I've found it to be very effective, but my birds have had about three small sores at most, so I don't know if you will be able to get enough on there to actually work. With a case like this I'd most likely go for the more commercial treatments (I hate using anything that isn't natural on my birds, but sometimes you have to) rather than the oregano.

 

[Kathy Golla]

What do you mean by you dosed 1/4 tsp copper sulfate? It should be 1/4 tsp poultry grade acidified copper sulfate per gallon of drinking water, not a direct dose to the bird.

He said 1/4 tsp of copper sulfate in a gallon of water.
@Eggcessive is right though @Chicken Keith you can’t put acv and copper sulfate together. Dump out and redo the water with just copper sulfate.

 

[micstrachan]

He said 1/4 tsp of copper sulfate in a gallon of water.
@Eggcessive is right though @Chicken Keith you can’t put acv and copper sulfate together. Dump out and redo the water with just copper sulfate.

Thought I read he dosed 1/4 tsp? I must be losing it. Plus I’m outside with my phone (glare). I once read that vinegar is used to acidify copper sulfate. Don’t recall the source. No idea on ratios, but I think poultry grade is already acidified. At least the stuff I use is.