Rooster not gaining weight - dont know why and need help for him

[chickenlady]

I have a 1 year old standard cochin rooster. He has always felt skinny to me. Despite eating all the time, he never seems to gain weight. He eats game bird super breeder as his regular food and in the evening he gets a bowl of table scraps and a bowl of cracked corn. He has a very hearty appetite but I am afraid he is going to waste away to nothing.

He has been wormed with eprinex, I did it 2 months ago and did it for 3 weeks straight to make sure I took care of anything that may be there. Before I got him, he had spent several month infested with mites. I have had him for about 4 months now and he has been free of mites. I was hoping he would have gained weight but he has not.

What could be the problem here? His poops are normal, he acts normal. Just very thin, maybe getting thinner. Could cocci cause this problem?

 

[DTchickens]

if it was cocci.. think it'd have a lot more symptoms. How much is he moving around? i've had roosters walk themselves to death because they would never stop moving. how high is his roost poll? (Perch, etc)

 

[chickenzoo]

I have had full size chickens with cocci that had trouble gaining weight. Also ivomec is great, but does not kill all worms. Levasol pig wormer is good to, as well as wazine etc. They all treat different worms so a rotation is necessary if you are having trouble.

 

[chickenlady]

DT-he does not move around much. He lives with 3 girls that he does breed alot to. I have limited the time he is with them for fear that he was getting to much activity, lol. I do not offer my cochins a perch, so they are always on the floor.

Chickenzoo- I chose eprinex because of the wide variety of worms that it kills. Wazine is only good for round worms and that was the first wormer I ever used on him. Then I switched to the Eprinex. I really dont feel he is infected with worms or mites for that matter.

What is my best course of action? Do I treat for cocci without confirmation or do I just let him ride it out and hope he doesnt get any skinnier? Thanks.

 

[DTchickens]

well if hes not any skinnier then he was.. but hes not getting fatter. and hes fine.. i wouldn't worry about it. Some birds are just sharp (Skinny feeling) i have a line of SDWs... Doesn't matter what i do they feel a bit skinny but are perfectly healthy.

 

[chickenlady]

Is it possible that he could be anemic from his heavy and prolonged mite infestation? If so, what can be done to reverse that?

 

[chickenzoo]

Quote:
Levasole will kill many things that ivomec will not, so I do one then the other to get all types of worms. I also use Vazaban, because of the same reason. If you feel that worms are not the issue and he is still thin, then I would dose with amoprilum/corid (sp). If he has not gained weight and he is bone thin then something is going on. If you do not use corid then at least feed him some canned dog food, some red cell that has iron to help with anemia. Mites can drag a bird down but it would have to be a lot to keep him that skinny for that long.