Is my Roo sick??? Please help

[diditotaro]

Hello

First fall with chickens. About a week ago my Roo who is study and large and about 2 yrs old sounded funny when he cock-a-doodle-doo'd (sorry)...kind of like he was starting laryngitis but as he is eating...mating and running around fine I let it go but now I'm worried..he is still eating/drinking etc but can hardly make any noise at all.

Is this a normal cold- change of season thing??? Is there something I can do to help him?

Thank you
Donna

 

[Eggcessive]

Check around for any mold from wet conditions outside or inside the coop. Aspergillosis from mold or food can affect the voice, but other respiratory diseases may also cause them to sound hoarse or lose voice. Here is a good link including the diseases aspergillosis, mycoplasma (MG,) infectious bronchitis, and coryza, all of which are common diseases: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps044

 

[Frizzlett98]

It could be. Just give him a little while to see if there's change. If he starts acting sick, then I would start searching for what it could be.

 

[diditotaro]

Thank you! Didn't think of mold because I use sand not straw and scoop up droppings every morning so I just assumed since the coop never smells that all was well but maybe not! They all free range in a 300 ft enclosure all day so there might be a spot where water collected or pee and got moldy. Its a large grassy area so it rarely ever smells... I'll check tonight!
thanks again to both of you

 

[cafarmgirl]

It could be a mold/fungus issue but I'd be more suspicious of a respiratory disease. Check the link Eggcessive posted and read up about the respiratory diseases listed. We have dealt with infectious bronchitis here and that is how it started, with the bird sounding hoarse for about a week, then progressed to a wet cough, wheezing, rattling breathing, then morphed right into pneumonia very fast after that. But many of the symptoms of these diseases mimick each other so it's almost impossible to know what they've got without having some testing done.