Rooster with sudden extreme lethargy

[buckabucka]

Kefir is a milk-based drink with lots of cultures, -kind of like yogurt but liquid. The reason I tried it was because I had just wormed him and dawg had suggested pumping him with probiotics. It was easy to syringe feed this to him, because it is liquid. It is not really any kind of cure-all, but is a good supplement after worming. I bought it once for a hen with sour crop, and now I drink it, so it is always on hand.

Really, I had given up on my rooster that morning. I brought a bag in with me, expecting to be removing a dead body. When I saw he was still breathing, I decided to try syringe feeding as a last resort. He came from the most expensive hatching eggs I ever purchased, -an all-male hatch!
I hope yours improves.

 

[ktpaco]

So I found Sammy dead this morning. I will send his body off for a necropsy. Hopefully it will be something that was congenital.

 

[buckabucka]

I'm really sorry to hear this.

Please let us know what the necropsy says.

 

[ktpaco]

Final report on the necropsy - I've had the prelim for weeks, but the final report contains more info.

Here it is:
Mycoplasma synoviae infection
Sepsis
Enteritis
Endoparasitism


The report said that the fact that his gizzard was full of round worms was enough to kill him, but in addition to that he had coccidiosis too.

So weird - he really had no outward symptoms except at his final hours, and all that was was extreme lethargy.

Now I know what to look for and how to examine my flock, the rest are basically recovering - even though I would have never known I had a serious issue had I not taken Sammys body examined. Poor guy - I feel so bad!

 

[buckabucka]

Thanks for taking time to share the results. I'm glad you learned something in the process to help with your flock!

 

[chicknmania]

So sorry to read about your loss, but thank you so much for sharing your experience!

I googled the symptoms of my six year old rooster, which are almost identical to the ones you had with your poor Sammy, and it brought me to this thread.. Our Captain was crowing and running around one day, then the next he was very lethargic and just wanted to lie down and not crow at all. Although it was never diagnosed by a veterinarian, we strongly suspected he had MS (mycoplasma Synovae) last winter and we treated him for it for several weeks. He eventually recovered and we let him out, though he has always had a slight limp since then.

When he developed the lethargy (this was recenty), he also had a very unusually bright red comb like you describe. I dewormed him with Panacur, and then later Levamisole. He did improve, and I had him on high potency vitamins. He has improved enough to walk around and his appetite has improved a lot. He still has days where he seems to relapse though. I bought him some Chunky Chicken Caviar from My Pet Chicken, he loves that stuff and it seems to be very good for him., and he gets an energy boost from it, but I don't know. He has also lost a lot of weight.

I found your posts very interesting, especially that so many symptoms in the two roosters matched. Worms can do a lot of damage. We deworm regularly, but we deworm the flock as a whole, so I think sometimes he did not get as much dewormer as he should have. I suspect that Captain may still carry MS even though he doesn't necessarily show symptoms. We give our flock preventative Denagard every couple of months, because of the MS we suspect he has had. I haven't been able to find anything about the weird unusually bright red comb color, until I cam across your post. He never had a pale comb at all, though it was slightly purplish one day.

 

[buckabucka]

I worm once a year in December with Valbazen, which I put directly in their mouth, so I know everyone gets a dose. Sometimes I find droppings with worms, starting around July sometime, so I think I should really be on a twice per year worming schedule. I think it depends in part on your climate and soil.

My rooster has a limp too, which I don't think is related to his earlier illness, but maybe it is. He is still alive and doing well, but is definitely more lethargic than my other roosters. Sometimes the tips of his comb turn purple, but then it goes away. He's just over two years old now.
Good luck with yours!

 

[chicknmania]

Thank you. We deworm three to four times a year, and we have a big flock, some we can't catch, so Valbazen isn't practical, although I do keep it for individual cases.
We had a severe problem with Capillary worms a few years ago, and they are terrible to get rid of. Because of that, we alternate Levasole and Strike 3, every three or four months.
Seems to work well for the majority.

Good luck with yours as well. I am undecided whether to put ours back in a hospital pen and start him on antibiotics, or let him to continue to free range (which is way less stressful for him) and just try to keep him fed and hydrated. At this point, I am sure he is not contagious. I hate to see him languishing,this is the really bad part of chicken keeping. He's an old friend.

 

[Elaina vassel]

I have a golden cuckoo Marans rooster, 1 year old. Wednesday he was perfectly normal, -energetic, vigorous eating, drinking, mating. Thursday morning he was extremely lethargic. He walked to the feeder and fell sound asleep. His comb appeared brilliant red. He had solid and normal-looking droppings, but very bright green. The birds have been out ranging, so the color may not be a sign of disease, but the hens do not have droppings of this color.

All day Thursday, the rooster alternated between very brief periods of standing/walking and longer periods of laying absolutely flat, head on the ground, eyes closed. I was not home, but DH said many times he thought he had died and checked for breathing. He syringe fed some water. I had planned to cage him when I got home late Thursday, but when I went to check on him, the rooster showed a sudden improvement. He ate and drank on his own and mated the hens, although he went to roost early.

Today, Friday morning, he needed some blue-kote on his foot. The hens pick at the feathers on his feet and caused some bleeding. He was able to crow (not something he could do yesterday) but kept falling asleep. He slept a lot all day, but did not lay as flat or appear dead, which I guess is a slight improvement. I don't know if he ate much as I was working, but he did pick at feed this evening. During the brief periods that he is awake, he is capable of running full speed after a hen and seems somewhat normal, but he quickly falls asleep again.

This came on very suddenly, -overnight. He's never been wormed before, and I have some Valbazen. I don't know if worming is hard on their system and I should wait for improvement, or if I should worm right away (or at all). It almost seems like he ate something bad or had a heart attack (would he survive that?). Not a gradual decline at all. I'm not sure how I should proceed, but something must be wrong with him.

I appreciate any insight someone might have.

Very strange because my rooster was perfectly fine no signs of anything and then just one morning I went outside to let them out of the pool the other chickens came running out like usual and my rooster was on the second level bent all the way down with his eyes closed head on the floor but standing up almost like he’s on drugs looks like he’s nodding out he would get up a little bit stumble the night out again I’m actually at the hospital right now waiting to see what the exact doctor says but I’m very worried I hope everything went OK with your rooster

 

[Elaina vassel]

Very strange because my rooster was perfectly fine no signs of anything and then just one morning I went outside to let them out of the pool the other chickens came running out like usual and my rooster was on the second level bent all the way down with his eyes closed head on the floor but standing up almost like he’s on drugs looks like he’s nodding out he would get up a little bit stumble the night out again I’m actually at the hospital right now waiting to see what the exact doctor says but I’m very worried I hope everything went OK with your rooster