Mouth wound on cockerel - Updated with necropsy results

[Happy Chooks]

The scab is still there - it's connected to fresh tissue and looks like it was made by drainage from the jaw area. If I push on the swollen part, clear drainage comes out at the corner of his jaw where the scab formed. I don't think it is fowl pox - I think it's an abscess of some sort. I think it started far back in his jaw.

No issues with anyone else in the flock, everyone is perfectly healthy. His crop was empty Saturday when I gave him the injection, so I gave him a scrambled egg, which he wolfed down. Last night he had food in his crop, so he's feeling a bit better. It's not slowing him down at all - still running around trying to woo the hens.

I will try to get some more pictures later today. The flaps of dead skin you see in the picture above are gone now and the tissue is not as dark brown as it was.

 

[Wynette]

Kelly, could he have something stuck in the back of his jaw? Wasn't it Mary who had a bird that somehow got a piece of very fine string (almost like fishing line) somehow stuck THROUGH the back of his head, behind the jaw, and when she found that (buried in his feathers, sticking out a bit) she pulled it slowly out and the bird quickly got better! They CAN get into some really odd things.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Yes, Mary had a chick that got some of that green mesh that is under sod grass stuck over her head and caught in her beak. By the time she found it, it had grown into her neck and the back of her jaw. She was able to cut it like sutures and pull it out.

But I don't see anything back there on my cockerel. Maybe once some of the swelling goes down, I'll find something.

 

[dawg53]

It could be canker. If so, you'll need to purchase Metronidazole, sold online as "fishzole" 250mg tablets. Dosage is one 250mg tablet once a day for 5 days. Canker is contageous and birds remain carriers. Consider reading up on it if you wish.
It can be controlled using copper sulfate, 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of water for 3 days once a month.

 

[Happy Chooks]

It could be canker. If so, you'll need to purchase Metronidazole, sold online as "fishzole" 250mg tablets. Dosage is one 250mg tablet once a day for 5 days. Canker is contageous and birds remain carriers. Consider reading up on it if you wish.
It can be controlled using copper sulfate, 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of water for 3 days once a month.

I was hoping you'd reply! I'll have to look it up - how do they get canker? Carriers for life? Ugh, I hope it's not canker.

 

[speckledhen]

It doesn't seem to look like a classic canker, at least to me, but hard to say. Those look more like cottage cheesy lumpy growths on the sides and inside of the mouth, from what I've seen, but sometimes, diseases don't read the textbook.

Yes, canker is a carrier disease. I had this come up in conversation years ago with Dr. Peter Brown when Hawkeye was in quarantine. He didn't have canker, just globs of food stuck on the sides of his throat at the time I looked into his mouth, lol. Scared me to death because I was ready to put him down after seeing that. It does seem more like an abscess, but you'd have to just watch him and treat that area and see what happens. Dawg is right, if it is, you'd need an anti-fungal to treat it, but if it is, you also don't want to keep him as a breeder.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Right now, I'm freaking out and ready to take him to be euthanized and necropsied.


So isolate him and if he doesn't die within 10 days, it's not canker?

Does copper sulfate prevent the rest of my flock from getting it, if that's what it is? I'm not interested in treating a carrier disease, but if I can prevent it in the rest of my flock, I will. If it just covers up the symptoms, I'm not interested. As hard as it would be, I will cull every bird that shows symptoms.

I had a hawk attack about a month ago that left a partial carcass in the run. I've read that hawks carry this disease from eating pigeons. Could my cockerel have contracted this from eating the carcass left by the hawk?

 

[debs_flock]

Oh Kelly, I'm sorry. It does look a bit like some of the pictures I looked up. To be safe, the first thing I'd do is isolate him strictly, using strict isolation procedures and treat the rest of your flock with copper sulfate treatment as a precaution.

I've read that wild birds in general can be carriers.

I hope for you it is just an abcsess, much simpler problem.

Deb

 

[Happy Chooks]

I spoke with the lab technician at UC Davis to see if they can test a swab instead of killing the bird for necropsy. She said that Canker (known as Tricomona by lab technicians) and Fowl Pox can look identical. They can do a swab test for both, but I have to check on the cost for the lab and the cost of a vet to do the scraping. If it's too expensive, I may have to sacrifice him to find out what it is.

She also told me that my bird can have Canker and not die, but still infect the rest of the flock - they can live with it present in their bodies, even without treatment. I also asked her about the hawk attack I had, and she confirmed that Canker can come into a flock through the carcass via the hawks saliva. Since the disease is common in pigeons and hawks eat pigeons, they can be carriers as well.

ETA: It's cost prohibitive to do the swab and I was told it may not give me accurate results. So now I have to contemplate having him euthanized to find out what it is.

 

[dawg53]

Birds with canker can survive if they are able to swallow their food. Treatment with metronidazole will clear up the lesions so they can eat/drink and swallow normally. Birds with canker also present a foul breath odor. I'm not sure if wet pox causes a foul breath odor or not. Of course fowl pox is normally spread by mosquitos. Have you had any mosquito problems lately to cause fowl pox?