Sick/Lethargic Young Rooster

[PNWHank]

Hey everyone,

We have a new young rooster who just joined our homestead. He is about 3 months old and was donated to us about 4 days ago, and for the past 2 days has been acting like he is in the photo; very lethargic, opens his eyes less and less, doesn’t eat or drink(we have been giving him sugar water via dropper with a bit of apple cider vinegar in it). We are wondering if anyone has any insight as to what might be causing this.

The day we put him out with the flock, a hen ripped one of his ear lobes clean off, so I’m wondering if he has an infection where his ear lobe was torn? We cleaned it with warm soapy water and apply a bit of polysporin to it each day. His head is very warm. He has been inside with us for the past 2 days in this state. It has also been very rainy and cold here and his first day outside with the hens was wet and miserable.

I’ve been trying to find Amprolium or Corid to treat for Coccidiosis, but it is very difficult to find it quickly here in Canada. We’re wondering if we can do anything else to help him while we wait for meds to come in? If anyone has had this happen to their chickens we’d love to know if anything helped. Thanks in advance!

Hank

 

[Eggcessive]

He may be young, and the hens whipped up on him. I would call around to vets in your area to try to buy some amprollium for treatment of possible coccidiosis. How old are the hens? Are they aggressive? Saline and Neosporin are fine to use on his ear. Try to get home drinking well, and offer some mushy wet chicken feed and egg. When you get the amprollium, give him 1/2 tsp of the undiluted amprollium once a day into his beak. Also mix the water with 2 tsp of the amprollium per gallon of water daily. It is safe for others if he is back with some. Or make a smaller amount 1/2 tsp per liter for 5 days.

 

[MysteryChicken]

Earlobes heal up pretty quickly, between 2½ to 3 weeks.

 

[PNWHank]

He may be young, and the hens whipped up on him. I would call around to vets in your area to try to buy some amprollium for treatment of possible coccidiosis. How old are the hens? Are they aggressive? Saline and Neosporin are fine to use on his ear. Try to get home drinking well, and offer some mushy wet chicken feed and egg. When you get the amprollium, give him 1/2 tsp of the undiluted amprollium once a day into his beak. Also mix the water with 2 tsp of the amprollium per gallon of water daily. It is safe for others if he is back with some. Or make a smaller amount 1/2 tsp per liter for 5 days.

Thanks for the reply,

The vets here won’t give amprolium without first seeing the animal, but they also don’t see chickens. It’s very frustrating. There is a farm animal vet about 2+ hours drive away but I am worried about stressing him out even more..

Our hens are about a year and 5 months old, they haven’t been aggressive toward each other so it was a shock to see how rough they were on him. He is drinking a ton of water right now but struggles to eat still.

I ordered the Corid but I also just found Ampromed for chickens, wondering if that is a better bet? It will still take some time to get here from the states unfortunately