Ear infection in rooster

[nicoleroxanne]

My rooster has an ear infection that we have had to clean out the ear of white cheesy stuff and treat with an ear drop antibiotic and oral amoxicillin. He has the ear infection comming back again and his whole balance is off

is there something else that might be able to be done or is it time to put him down. My kids love big daddy so I hope to save him! HELP!

 

[nicoleroxanne]

Other info to know would be we have treated this twice now so this is my 3rd shot. The whole mess started with a respiratory infection we treated back during winter. The first time treated we pulled a big plug out of the right ear. The 2nd time a small plug :-(

 

[dawg53]

Unfortunately surviving birds with a respiratory disease become carriers for life despite antibiotic treatments. Whatever respiratory disease a bird has, will eventually build resistance to the antibiotic that has been given to the bird. More powerful antibiotics will be required...on and on it goes until there's nothing that will treat the disease. Then if it's a viral disease, antibiotics are ineffective. If your rooster has had a respiratory disease as you mentioned and has been free roaming in your flock, it's highly likely other birds have been infected as well and other birds would have been showing respiratory disease symptoms. Have your other birds been showing respiratory disease symptoms? If not, your rooster may have a fungal problem.
If it's bacterial; lay your rooster on his side and snugly wrap a towel around him, and lay him on one side on a table. Use an eyedropperful of hydrogen peroxide to loosen and boil up gunk/debris in his ear. Then use a q-tip to slowly and gently clean out his ear. You will have remove some of the cotton on the tip of the q-tip in order for it to fit inside his ear canal. Do NOT put the q-tip deep into the ear canal. The hydrogen peroxide will have released and lifted most of the gunk making it easy for you to swab the ear canal. Use as many q-tips as necessary to clean the ear canal. Next, use Neosporin ointment to fill the ear canal, simply put the tip of the tube into the ear canal and squeeze it until the ear canal is filled with the ointment. Then flip him over and get to work on his other ear, same procedure. If ear mites are involved, the Neosporin ointment will smother them to death. Once you release your rooster, he might shake his head for awhile, this is normal. You will most likely have to repeat the ear cleaning 2 or 3 times a year. You can give him tylan 50 injectable orally; 1/2cc once a day for 5 days but no more than 7 days.

 

[nicoleroxanne]

I did have two birds die unexpected and then my rooster was acting limp and breathing funny. He was treated with a **** for 3 days and then was fine. The rest of my flock was treated in their water for 2 days. I have had no more problems with that. Then my rooster came down with this. I found a thread on here for a silkie with the same type of problems and I handled it the same way and it went away, but proceeded to come back. None of my other birds have had any problems just this poor rooster. His balance is all off and it's sad. My husband has agreed to give it one more go around. Thanks I will try and update.

 

[Angie16hearts]

I did have two birds die unexpected and then my rooster was acting limp and breathing funny. He was treated with a **** for 3 days and then was fine. The rest of my flock was treated in their water for 2 days. I have had no more problems with that. Then my rooster came down with this. I found a thread on here for a silkie with the same type of problems and I handled it the same way and it went away, but proceeded to come back. None of my other birds have had any problems just this poor rooster. His balance is all off and it's sad. My husband has agreed to give it one more go around. Thanks I will try and update.

What ended up happing? I'm on way to feed store for amoxicillin. I've been treating for two days now I don't want to lose him and I'm scared to take this gunk out now! He's had plenty of Neosporin injected into is ear. so after I can get his anabiotic I'll try and dig around in his ear. I'm really scared of the pools air drum out I hope it loosens up enough. How long did it take you to remove all the gunk? I absolutely adore this cockerel! He was supposed to be our next head rooster I'm so sad crossing my fingers praying he will make it through this !!

 

[nicoleroxanne]

We had to dig out all the funk and he did get better but he just kept getting it and eventually we decided that it was better to put him down :-( I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear but as stated above he would of always been a carrier and we would of spent forever just cleaning his ears and I could tell his whole balance was off.

 

[Falland]

Thanks for this detailed post. I read a few times and have done the operation on my rooster.
However, it's been almost 4 weeks after taking the huge piece of hard puss out but the swelling hasn't really gone down.
We're medicating him with antibiotic straight in his mouth everyday but not noticing any change.
And he has problem with his balance, too. I am guessing it's related to his ear.

Any suggestions to help my rooster?



These are pictures of the how he looked like before the operation and the stuff that we took out. Almost 2 inches.