Yellow crusting combs, what causes this? *pics*

[turtledove635]

I have been reading a lot on backyardchickens, but this is my first time posting on here.
I have many chickens of different breeds and sizes. Mostly bantams in my front yard and standards in the back yard.
I have 8 bantam chickens and one standard size chicken (they are all in the front yard) who have started showing signs of some kind of illness. It started out as a few bumps on the rooster's combs and now it's all over their faces and one has it real bad inside his mouth. It has gone from being bumps to crusting up with yellow scab like stuff. I have been cleaning off the yellow scabs and applying neosporin to it, but it doesn't seem much better. The bird's average ages are about a year, 4 roosters and 4 hens (banties) & 1 standard size hen have this illness.
I have been reading a lot trying to figure out what it is, but I haven't found anything like it yet.
My friend took a couple pics with her phone so I could post them on here:

Anyone have any ideas what it might be?
I look forward to your responses.

 

[speckledhen]

Could be canker. Google that and see if it fits. Could be favus on the comb, but both are essentially fungal infections. Favus can be fixed/treated, but canker is a carrier disease.

 

[turtledove635]

Thanks speckledhen, I googled "canker" and "the poultry site" came up, and then I looked at a few other things on that site.
Do you think fowl pox could be it? It kind of seemed more like what's going on. Like the roosters have it worse than the hens do and they are the ones who got it first. (sorry, forgot to mention that in earlier post).

Tell me what you think?

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/63/fowl-pox-pox-avian-pox

 

[chickencoop31320]

turtledove635 is a friend of mine and her internet is out right now.
I just wanted to update this post to let you all know that she has pretty much confirmed that her birds have avian pox.
The little rooster from the pic had the wet form and the rest so far have the dry form.
The little roo pictured died a couple days ago.
She has since caged the affected birds and they all seem to be getting better.
She has been giving them vitamins in their water and has stopped trying to treat the affected areas, they seem better since she stopped putting anything on the crusts.
speckledhen, thanks for your help.

 

[elmo]

So sorry about the loss of that little roo.

A lot of people are dealing with avian pox right now, I am, too. I've read that sometimes you can unintentionally infect other parts of the bird as you're trying to smear stuff on the lesions, and since topical treatments don't change the course of the disease anyway, I've decided not to interfere, too. I'm examining our birds several times a day, though, and if I see eyes/nose/ mouth affected, that would change my approach. So far, anyway, it's just combs.

 

[chickencoop31320]

Quote:
This is what we found online too.
Some of the sites we looked up said the same thing, don't mess with them or they will get worse.
At first, she was peeling off the crusts and putting neosporin on the wounds.
Then I found a site that said messing with the crusts makes it worse, and I remembered from having chicken pox (on myself as a teen) that they said the more you mess with them, the more you'll have... and that turned out to be true.
I'm just glad she asked for help before she ended up with them all over place, she free ranges the banties and they are the ones who had it first.
She is a real sweet lady and has oodles of birds, including chickens, ducks, pea fowl and turkeys.
It looks like she's getting it under control.

 

[elmo]

Quote:
This is what we found online too.
Some of the sites we looked up said the same thing, don't mess with them or they will get worse.
At first, she was peeling off the crusts and putting neosporin on the wounds.
Then I found a site that said messing with the crusts makes it worse, and I remembered from having chicken pox (on myself as a teen) that they said the more you mess with them, the more you'll have... and that turned out to be true.
I'm just glad she asked for help before she ended up with them all over place, she free ranges the banties and they are the ones who had it first.
She is a real sweet lady and has oodles of birds, including chickens, ducks, pea fowl and turkeys.
It looks like she's getting it under control.

It's really hard to "do nothing" even when doing nothing is often the best thing. We took our Billina to the vet this week simply because she'd scared the daylights out of us with her listless behavior on Sunday. The vet confirmed fowl pox, but gave us oral antibiotics in case of a secondary infection. I bought the antibiotics to have just in case, but I'm not going to give them to her prophylactically. That's how we ended up with so many antibiotic resistant bacteria. I'm watching her carefully, and if it looks like she's got an infection under those scabs, I'll dose her, but until then, no.