Old Silkie Rooster Struggling to eat

[hoender]

Hi, I'm from South Africa and hope to learn lots from this forum. Maybe some-one could help me? I have a Silkie rooster that is quite old. I have had him for almost two years and I think he was already pretty ancient when we got him. Unfortunately I don't know his background.

In the last week or so he seem to be struggling to swallow his food. He can still eat a snail or two but with great difficulty, and all other food I have to soften and mash up for him. In the two years that we have had him he has maybe crowed four times. He drinks lots of water and loves to sit with his back in the sun. He hasn't serviced any of the hens for the last two weeks either.

Any idea what to do with him or what might be wrong?

Hoender

 

[peeps7]

Sounds like hes just shutting down, hes probably just real old. I can't tell you anything to do except keep him warm and keep mashing up food for him, keep fresh water with him too.

 

[dlhunicorn]

snails harbor helminths which cause (internal ) parasites in your birds... have you ever wormed him? If not find an ivermectin based wormer and do so.
Also have a look in his beak... do you see any placques ? If so report that back.
A good supplement would certainly help...
look at a store for a childrens liquid vitamin A-B ...give him four drops of that once a day for a week then taper off the next. If you can find a good general poultry supplement add that to his feed/waterer.
You can also go to your petstore (for cage birds) and look for UNIVERSAL SOFTBILL FEED ... not the pelleted one... it is the basic feed for non-seed eating birds and is very nutricious. Get that for him...it is very nutricious and similar to what chickens need and very easy for an ill bird to metabolize the nutrients in it (insect based).