Wet fowl pox or canker?

[Rosmarino]

My sweet Australorp lady is going through hard times. She is breathing with her mouth open for 2 weeks now. She has lost weight rapidly and is barely eating. Most of the time she is standing in some corner of the run and is trying to breath. The vet prescribed antibiotics, 5 days Amoxicillin and nothing changed. Then we thought of gapeworm and gave her Flubenol. Nothing changed.I am feeding her mashed boiled egg with purred grains, nettle, garlic and cayenne pepper using a pipette. Although I am super careful with sticking the piper down her throat she is coughing a lot during the procedure. It is horrible. A few days ago I saw yellow cheesy lesions inside her mouth. They have spread inside the mouth. I have sent pictures to two vets, one is saying it could be canker the other thinks isn't is wet fowl pox. What should I do. I today the feeding became almost impossible because of her coughing. Otherwise I can see she wants to eat, sometimes walking around with the other and looking for food but is unable to pick it up. She is a sweet girl, very friendly and was a good layer. I don't know what to do.

 

[Eggcessive]

How does her beak smell? Does her tongue have the yellow cheesy plaque on it? Have you ever seen any dry fowl pox this year in your flock when mosquitoes were out? Has she had watery or bubbly eye on either side, rattly breathing, sneezing, head shaking, or gasping for air? Any other symptoms?

Canker or trich is a protozoal disease which pigeons carry and can spread to other birds and fowl. It smells rotten. Metronidazole, ronidazole, or acidified copper sulfate are drugs used to treat it.

If you have not seen dry fowl pox his year, it most likely is not wet pox . Wet fowl pox has no treatment.

 

[Rosmarino]

I can´t smell anything weird from her beak. Perhaps it smells a bit sweet but not rotten. Her eyes are looking healthy. I never had dry or any pox in my flock. Mosqitoes, oh yes a lot.
When I got her early this year in February she already had a rattling sound when breathing and her voice was strange. The gasping, shaking head, coughing/sneezing and weight loss are symptoms that have started 2 weeks ago.
Since antibiotics and Flubenol have not helped the vet prescribed Metronidazol against canker, but I havent given it to her yet. I am pretty sure it is not canker. If its wet fowl pox I can not do much, other than trying to care for her, right? I am giving her tea with antiviral herbs and mashed food with a pipet. Today she seemed a bit better, she even chased the cats away from their bowls and had a go at their food .
I cleaned the coop again thoroughly today and reading a lot about antiviral remedies and immune supporting herbs for chickens. All my chickens hate garlic, ginger and Origano, hahahaha. So I snuggle it in together with some Pasta and egg. Wish us luck!

 

[Eggcessive]

Canker is one of the diseases I would cull for. It is contagious to other birds and chronic, meaning it may be controlled but not cured. Can your vet take a scraping of the material and get it tested. It really does no good to treat for something when it has not been diagnosed with testing. It is possible that she has a respiratory disease and has a fungal/yeast infection. Hard to know for sure. Many times the best way to get a real diagnosis is when a necropsy can be done by a poultry lab vet. In the US, most of our state vets can do that.

 

[Eggcessive]

Just to see what the wet form of fowl pox looks like inside the beak and throat, here is a graphic picture of it in a hen during a necropsy:
https://tvmdl.tamu.edu/case-studies/diagnostic-guidance-fowl-pox/

 

[Rosmarino]

phew, thanks for the link. It is really hard to say if it is wet fowl pox in her case. I am in Italy, rural area, the vets are not much interested in chickens.
If there is no rotten or bad smell from the beak with the lesions, can I exclude canker?

 

[Eggcessive]

Canker is said to smell bad. So it would be hard for me to know exactly.