Hoarse crowing, is he sick

[socks]

Hi, after searching for this topic (no joy) and posting it in behaviors yesterday (no response and wrong area I guess) I am putting it here.

My 6 month old Buff Orp. rooster started crowing very strangely yesterday morning. It seemed to improve throughout the day but something always seemed off. This morning he sounds worse as if his throat is sore or ????? He has only crowed at dawn so far today.

He looks fine and as far as I know he has been eating well (I will scrutinize this more ). I have him and 3 other hens. Their feed is pellets which come out of a pvc tube feeder but recently I have been giving them cooked oatmeal with a bit of cayenne or yogurt mixed in as a morning warm up. I put down some straw bedding about a week ago as the hardware cloth floor of their coop was getting clogged with poop (not such a brilliant idea after all, Socks) and thinking it might add some warmth......maybe I should take that out....could he be eating it and getting impacted??? I'm a newby at this so other than what I read I haven't a clue.
I was kind of thrown off yesterday as we found our first two eggs and thought somehow it could have affected his crowing (did I mention I've only had chickens for 6 months

) but now I realize it must be something else. Should I try to quarentine him

Any ideas??? I will go out and check him some more and maybe just take the straw out in case.....
advice appreciated, thanks from a nervous newby

 

[socks]

update: so he won't let me near him, he is still very healthy acting but we have realized that right after he crows there is a kind of 'bellows' sound....which, maybe is a wheeze, not sure. We decided we needed to quarantine him and as we don't have an actual 'hospital/broody pen' but have put something aside to turn into that my husband started working on making it. Once done, we put the girls in the coop and tried to lure him outside of the run with corn....no amount of corn would tempt him out nor would coaxing and no he wasn't letting me touch him. As a result we put him in the covered area that surrounds our coop (he has been there before in the summer when he needed a time out for a couple of days). He can keep dry there but not warm. We live on the pacific west coast and he is a Buff orp. so I am hoping this will not be so bad for him. We will try again tomorrow to get him into the shelter and of course if his condition deteriorates he might be easier to handle.

So I'm just trying to make sure that this sounds like a respiratory thing and not a crop problem??? I would like to treat him naturally first because we treat ourselves that way but also because I won't be able to find any medication until I go to the city in a few days.....

I heard something about garlic any other ideas? I have been giving them yogurt and some cayenne.

 

[Crunchie]

Not what you are asking, but I would suggest picking up a net from your local bait & tackle store, walmart, etc. They are handy things to have around to catch a chicken that does not want to be caught.

I have an inexpensive cloth mesh one--I consider it a must-have with chickens. This would solve your problem of catching your wily roo.

About your original question, I'm afraid I don't have much info for you, so hopefully someone else will come along to help out. It could be something respiratory, and I personally would quarantine also. Be aware that often respiratory ickiness is viral, so the medication (antibiotics) that you'll find at your feed store won't do you any good in these cases. Also, many are quite contagious. Of course, this is just in general, and no one can tell you what your bird has over the internet! As general maintenance I put apple cider vinegar in my bird's water and supplement their feed with a powdered probiotic supplement (I only rarely feed actual dairy. I don't think it hurts them, but I don't think that they can digest dairy well or much at all, so I have doubts about the benefit of yogurt for chickens. I realize that my opinion on that is debatable and will most likely be met with disagreement.

) Both of these things are good to support the immune system, and couldn't hurt.

Good luck!

 

[socks]

Thanks Crunchie : A fish net!!! Couldn't find an icon of smacking the forehead with a hand so you'll just have to imagine me doing it.....my husband is a fisherman so he must have a net we can use. We thought about that before for when we wanted to get them in from free ranging but so far food bribes have worked and so it slipped our minds.

Thanks for your thoughts on probiotics. I do have some powdered probiotics for humans...is that what you use???? I will add cider vinegar to his drinking water. I hadn't in general as I have a big metal water container for everyone and didn't want the cost of replacing it at this point.

If I was to consider some kind of medication (and assuming I could find it locally in Canada) do people have any thoughts about Oxine. I just read that it is considered o.k. to use for organically raised cattle....

If warmth is important for treatment it looks like we've failed him on that score and will try with a net tomorrow (he's pretty big for a fly fisherman's net, not sure if we have a one his size but maybe the neighbours do).

thanks for your help.