HELP!!!!!!!! I Think Barred Rock Roo Sick!!!!Plz any Advice!!!!!!!

[coltsrox]

Howdy,

So I just got in town last night and my rooster seems pale in the face with his comb and all, all his normal redness is really pale. He is 16 months old, jsut recently lost all his tale feathers, why is this happening???? I left for a month and just returned to find him so, hen seems perfectly fine. When I was gone i found out I didn't leave enough oyster shells with the babysitter, but is that it? her eggs still seem good would it affect him? There doesn't seem to be blood in their poo or diaherra around...PLZ HELP so scared! Am I overreacting???

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Read through the "Helpful References and Links" that is a sticky at the top of the Emergencies/Diseases/Injuries and cures

Get some Poly-Vi-Sol WITHOUT Iron and start feeding that to him, three drops along the inside edge of the beak, and give him some hard-boiled egg, especially the yolk.

You'll have to answer lots of questions before anyone can help you better.
Does he feel lighter than normal? Seem skinny?
When did you last worm him?
Check in the night for mites along the base of his feathers. Only at night. Mites can bring a chicken down quickly.

I'm assuming he's not dehydrated? Is he eating normally? Behaving normally?

 

[threehorses]

Along with Eggs4Sale's awesome questions, I'd want to nkow what feed they usually eat. I really am interested in whether or not you find mites or lice. When you're looking, be sure to look for white clusters around the feather shafts; those can be louse eggs.

And by the way, check him carefully in his front area - do you see new incoming feathers there?

 

[coltsrox]

howdy

they normally eat purina mills layena,I will check him tonight for mites. I don't see anything unusual in his chest area. and i did read it but because i am still techinally new at this since only ever having these 2 chickens, i am confused when i read it....

"Does he feel lighter than normal? Seem skinny?" honestly i don't know i wanna say yes but sometimes i jump to conclusions....


"When did you last worm him?" last november cuz he vomitted and was shaking but then seemed fine...

"I'm assuming he's not dehydrated?Is he eating normally?" how would i tell? i see him drinking and eating
"Behaving normally?" the only thing i could say is he seems zoned out, when i came home they were both sleeping on their perch together but now everytime i go out there to check he is offf of it.

now for my questions,

How would i check for mites? how do i know?will mites kill him? or can it be taken care of?


were would i get some Poly-Vi-Sol WITHOUT Iron ?

Is his hen in danger????I would seprate them but they have never been sperated from birth and whenever i take him away for just minutes she starts having a fit and squackin, so i feel it would kill him even worse, they would not be able to live without one another...
i only have 2 chickens....thank yall for your help so worried don't know why his comb his comb and all is pale...........

just gave him a hardboiled egg, he knibbled at the egg whites but gobbled down most of the yolk... i just found poop smears on his butt fur feathers, he's always been a clean pooper. I mean when he was a kid he had it once or twice but not sense being full grown...help! i am so nervous....

 

[Eggs4Sale]

Coltzrox,
Threehorses is exactly who you need to be getting your advice from. She's the chicken doctor here (in knowledge, not license) and she'll get your rooster better if you two work together.

Poly-Vi-Sol without Iron is in the vitamin section of WalMart. It's an infant vitamin. I've seen it in other places like Walgreens and Fry's, but this could be a regional thing.

Under the circumstances, I personally would keep him with the hen, but that comes with the warning that she may get it or already have it. But that's just me. Others would say quarantine. But you only have two. Plus, the hen needs to be treated in the same manner as him, to help her avoid it or fight off an emerging case of it.

Granted, I don't know what "it" is, but with threehorses on the case, we'll know soon enough if we keep at this.

She says to check all over the birds, at the base of the feathers, all over. The mites live in the coop and feast at night, so they're the human bedbug equivalent.
There is a powder available at feedstores and pet stores to treat them for mites. threehorses will help you with that.

It's time to worm again, but wait on that till threehorses gives the go-ahead. Have you noticed if his poop is foamy?

When you hold him, does his breast bone stick out a little or is it practically hurting your hand? threehorses describes it like this, wish I had the quote..
The letters U,V, and Y...
think of the breast bone at the bottom of the letters, so the letter forms the shape of the breast.
A U-shaped breast is a fat bird.
A V-shaped breast is normal
A Y-shaped breast, with the bone sticking out like the bottom of the Y, is a too-skinny bird.

Is he no longer sleeping on the perch at night? If not, he sounds too weak to fly up there.

Just a question, not an accusation: You were gone for a month. Are you certain he was fed well while you were gone? Maybe a rooster doing his rooster duty would turn over his ration to his hen if there wasn't enough to eat.
I only ask because whenever I've had other people care for my animals while I was gone, they never did it as often as was required and even let the water go dry in the summer.

And a lot of people are kind of freaked out by chickens.
I sure wish the best for you and your two buddies. Threehorses will help, and I'll stay subscribed to this.

 

[threehorses]

Thanks Eggs4Sale.

He and I had a PM discussion (which I now wish I had saved so I could post it here). Pretty much I said the same thing you did, and dug around for more information. When he replies, I'll bring it here and we'll talk about it.

I'm wondering too about the birdsitter. No one ever does as good a job as the original owner, particularly if they care as much about the birds as coltsrox does. Well.... I take that back. My mom used to birdsit for me. She did awesome!

But that was because she was the original chicken addict - I was just following her lead.

In any case, i hope we'll get this sorted out for Coltzrox.

 

[coltsrox]

ok so i apologize how wierd this has gotten so i am going to copy my reply to threehorses to this post, so maybe i can bring it back here...

Howdy,
let me first say thank yall so much for your help yall have been wonderful!i can see threehorses knows what she is talkin about and thats why i am overeagerr to listen! but i appreciate ur inpuit to eggsforsale, ur amazin!

1, I picked up my hen today and she was defintley alot heavier, which is not normal for them

2. When I did it in november (or was it october?) it was wazine....

3. Evrytime i go out to check he is not on the perch which for them they don't even have to fly to, more like a hop....which of the two she normally is the ground one..i thinkj he is to weak...

4. i just checked for mites, white clusters anything abnormal and he just stood there like a perfect gentlemen and let me check him. nothing abnormal...

5. i just gave him him that stuff, which i got at wal-mart,without iron. he was interested in it so it wasn't to hard but then i dropped some in thier water...

6. the hen has been getting pretty much the same treatment,

7.tommorrow i will try to get him the yogurt...

8. i did put the poly stuff in their water...

9. anything else? basically he looks like crap, he's just so weak..kinda slumps around....

10. ok so i went to the feed store and got him the mite spray for poultry and gave him a bath in it earlier today, sprayed his hutch. soaked him in the measured stuff u mentioned just don't know how to spell it, its the like pentracin II stuff. sprayed the hen, course she hated it and flew from me, but he stood like a perfect gentlemen...
he still is pale and when i came back hours after the bath he had fresh runny poop on his butt feathers, nothing is irregular in his poop except a little runny...and he just seems to hunch. thats when i check for the mites and saw nothing...

couple more things...

i showered him with the liqued stuff cuz the lady at the store said it was more effective then the powder but most people use the powder cuz the roo wont let them touch him so i used the spray since he would....was that correct action?

while he is alot thinner his breast bone is not sticking out horribly....his poop is just runny no foam. so should i adminster wazine even after the bath?

The babysitter...hmmm wow. I dont know how to ask him, if he did good. he said the rooster attacked him the first day but not after that. i mean when i came home they had plenty of feed and a little low on water but they weren't in want...i appreciate yalls help so much, so worried..........is he on his death bed? he's not actin normally.sorry for the lengthyness.....


this is a very simliar story but i hardly can beliebe its just molting................what yall think?except nothing dark on his comband wattles....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=221110&p=2

 

[JestersEye]

Hi, ColtsRox

Sorry to hear about your sick rooster.

I know how worried you feel since I just went through the same thing. (You mentioned my post, which I have just updated, btw.)

Egg4Sale let me know about your situation, and asked if I would visit this board to see if I could offer any additional advice. It does sound very similar to what our Cobalt went through except he never lost any feathers, luckily. He did seem to lose some weight, though, since I think his breast bone became more pronounced. That's what began to worry me the most! The lack of oyster shell wouldn't have anything to do with it, since I've never even given it to my chickens. Our hens seem to lay eggs just fine, and I just never got around to adding it yet. I don't see how it could affect your rooster's health, either way.

First off, Cobalt seemed to act tired and lethargic and eventually lost his appetite. His wattle and comb appeared to get paler or duller than usual. Basically, he looked kinda depressed... he walked really slowly and let his tail droop down. Those were the signs that let me know something was wrong. I never saw any blood in the stools, or diarrhea. In fact, in the beginning, his poop was quite firm. Later on, though, it did become watery because he wasn't eating enough.

I suggest you do all the things I did, since something (or the combination) seemed to do the trick. The first thing I did was put him in a cage in the house. This separated him from the flock, to prevent the spread of possible illness, to prevent him from getting bullied or picked on, and to eliminate any stress caused by heat. I also added VetRx for poultry to his water, and made sure he drank by offering it to him whenever I could. (I kept dripping some onto his beak, or dipping his beak into the water until he cooperated.)

When I didn't notice any respiratory distress, I figured that the VetRx wasn't really the right medication for these symptoms. That's when I decided to add Duramycin-10 to the water instead. You can use another similar broad-spectrum antiobiotic powder, such as Aureomcyin or Tetramycin, found at most livestock feed stores. As others mentioned to me, you should always use antiobiotics for the full 7 days once you start it, or you could inadvertently create a "super-bug" that is resistant to treatment. During all this, I also wondered about lice or mites, so I sprayed all the chickens with Poultry Protection and thoroughly cleaned the coop. I never saw any signs of infestation, but it couldn't hurt to cover everything.

I still didn't see much improvement in Cobalt right away, and started to worry about his lack of energy and loss of appetite. I began to think that he was continuing to decline due to lack of nutrition. That's when I realized he needed some sort of vitamin supplement or electrolytes. I asked around on this board and at the livestock store, and I decided to use Nutri-drench which can be given as an oral treatment and added to the water supply. I opted for the "Rapid Recovery" dosage, which I administered directly into his beak every few hours. I was desperate to keep his strength up, because he seemed to sleep all the time.

The best advice I can give is to start forcing him to eat! I think the lack of appetite is what would finish him off the quickest. I started hard-boiling eggs and offering him the crushed up yolks. At first, he did seem slightly interested but not enough to make him eat well. I also offered him some yogurt crumbles mash, but he only ate what I could stick to his beak while he stood there. Finally, I made him fill his crop by opening his beak with my fingers and dropping the egg yolk into his beak until I could feel a small bulge from his crop. The very next morning after his first forced-feeding, I could see an improvement in the consistency of his poop. I think he also had more vigor, but he still needed one or two more TLC feedings. I might have hand-fed him for longer, but I had to leave for vacation.

The next feeding I gave included Layena crumbles, which is what he was used to getting. Be sure he is drinking enough, as well. I made sure by using an eye dropper to pour medicated water into his beak after each feeding. When he started acting a bit better, I started offering him other pet foods to see if I could stimulate his taste buds, such as cat and rabbit food. He acted interested in picking out the cracked corn from the rabbit feed, so I ran right out and bought both Layena pellets and cracked corn, to offer all the chickens a variety. It must have worked, 'cause he started pecking at it and eventually he started eating and drinking regularly again.

I hope some of my techniques can help you and your roo. I really think the Nutri-drench and the egg yolk forced-feedings were critical in keeping his strength up while he recovered from whatever illness he was suffering from. I recommend you start that as soon as possible, and medicate as you feel necessary. My hens and the other rooster never got sick at all, so hopefully you'll just have to concentrate your energies on this one rooster.

Good luck and be sure to keep us posted on your ordeal. I'll keep checking to see if you have any questions I can help with.

 

[coltsrox]

hey jesterseye, thanks so much.


update about my boy Massala:
he still looks pale, no crowing, no perch sightings yet, but he seems to be walkin around a little more and he is plainly addicted to the Poly-Vi-Sol without Iron, and so is his hen and i have been putting it in their water also. he seems to be a little better but i am currently fixing yogurt and eggs for him..and even though he currently has no tail feathers his but isnt sinking as much....and today he just pecked my dog so he is defntley feeling perky,.haha.

to everything else
1. he is in a seprate hutch with his hen currently in my garage, its in the 80s here but with no humidity. lots of rain. but he is deintley sheltered from it. we keep the garage shut except for a foot to keep the smell flowing...i see him drinking..normally their water container last two days but i just filled it up last night and its almost gone already so i believe their drinkin more...

2. so i am going to give him some corn, yogurt and eggs..is that good? i feed him seprately cuz the hen gets aggresive and steals it from him...thank u so much...i appreciate u instructing me on step by step...thianks again!

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Massala! Nice name!

Sounds good about the increases in his vigor, particularly giving the dog "what-for". I'd give him something better than corn if you can - he needs a range off nutrients. Corn is a bit tough for them to absorb. Yogurt and eggs, yes - can you maybe mix crumbles (dampened) in with cooked oatmeal and the eggs and yogurt? Hide them in his food?

You know, those tail feathers (depending on how they came out) might not come back until he catches up on nutrition or, if broken off not fallen out, might not come back til he molts. But of course I know that's not the real concern to you - his health is. But just so you'll know, the tail at this point might not be a worry any more. Before it was because it was indicative of something you felt was wrong - good eye.