Rooster Help

[Spepper]

Alright so we have a pretty well-loved gentle giant of a rooster (we don't pick him up but he's never ever tried to attack us) and now I believe he's injured himself hopping off the roost. He's a couple years old, so pretty young. He's a Wyandotte. His face and comb and waddle are all a healthy bright red and up until recently he acted perfectly healthy. Today one of my family members went out to give the chickens some scraps and they found him running into stuff and acting like something was constantly trying to get him from behind. When they called me I noticed that he was constantly placing his feet one right in front of the other and when he tried to place his right foot down where it should go (beside the other one) he instantly started falling that way and moved it to stay upright. There was a little frothy slime coming from his beak but I believe that's because he's extremely stressed. He wouldn't stop squawking. I think he must have hurt his right leg hopping off the roost but I'm not sure where... whether it's in the "knee" where his leg bends in the middle, at the "ankle" or at the hip. Have any of you dealt with a similar scenario? Right now we have him trapped under a weighted cardboard box so that he's in the dark and can't move so hopefully he'll calm down. I'm afraid the only option is to put him down, but it's one family member's last remaining personal chicken because all the others have died from one disease or another. Do any of you have any advice for how we could help him at all? Or could it possibly be a disease (although to me all signs point to injury)? Please help!

Thank you all so much in advance!

 

[The Snark]

Could be Marek's disease. A virus. Usually denoted by some degree of paralysis in the legs. Very infectious, even born by the wind. Affects the nervous system. No known cure. Vaccinations are available. If the animal survives, which is very rare, they will be carriers of the disease for life..

 

[Spepper]

Could be Marek's disease. A virus. Usually denoted by some degree of paralysis in the legs. Very infectious, even born by the wind. Affects the nervous system. No known cure. Vaccinations are available. If the animal survives, which is very rare, they will be carriers of the disease for life..

Oh my goodness I hope not. Thank you for opening my eyes to a possibility other than an injury though.

 

[Bergrider]

Is the rooster in question dragging the bad leg?

 

[Spepper]

No, he's not. Just sort of limping around and starting to fall over if he tries to stand normally.

 

[Bergrider]

It could be Marek's
I have had it in my flock a couple years ago.
Seems to have started the same way.
It's not normal for a bird to suddenly get clumsy.

 

[Spepper]

How could Marek's get to a flock that really has no outside contact at all? There are no other flocks near enough that it could be transmitted from them, and we haven't added any new birds for a couple years. Most of our chickens we hatched ourselves out of an incubator (a long time ago, the first chickens we had), bought as chicks from a farm store (a few years ago) or hatched under a broody hen that wasn't the mother of the eggs. Those eggs we got from a person who lives near us. David, the rooster in question, was from that last batch.

How many of your flock died from Marek's?

 

[The Snark]

Marek's is commonly transmitted by feathers or dander from infected animals. It can be carried on your clothing, feed sacks or just about anything that has been near infected birds. The dust from a farm with infected birds can be carried by the wind for quite a distance. Has also been transmitted via feed stores being visited by farmers with infected birds.
Most factory farms vaccinate all newborn chicks within days of hatching.

 

[Spepper]

This isn't looking good for our flock at all then. How long can the virus lie dormant or not be noticeable in a chicken? Also, is there a timeline after they get it and start appearing sick before they die?

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

Hopefully it's not Marek's. I lost a baby turkey to it. My grandfather had given us the egg for one of our hens, and after it passed he was like "Oh yeah, turkeys can get it too, sometimes" =(

If it is a leg issue, I had a Muscovy duck recover really well from a badly broken leg. My mother accidentally hit him with our car, and our old backwoods vet just said to "Tape a stick to it". As our only other option was to shoot him and eat him (25 years ago there wasn't going to be a vet to fix a duck in our area), we did it, and he survived and thrived.

I have *no* clue what the latency is on Marek's, but I hope it isn't. Good luck.

 

[Bergrider]

Marek's is commonly transmitted by feathers or dander from infected animals. It can be carried on your clothing, feed sacks or just about anything that has been near infected birds. The dust from a farm with infected birds can be carried by the wind for quite a distance. Has also been transmitted via feed stores being visited by farmers with infected birds.
Most factory farms vaccinate all newborn chicks within days of hatching.

It can also be transmitted by wild birds as well.
Most other keepers I know cull the suspect bird right away to attempt to stop the spreading. If not it takes the whole flock out

 

[Spepper]

He was limping this morning.

Now he's dead.

I desperately hope what killed him was anything but Merek's even if it was stressed caused by us.

 

[RzezniksRunAway]

=( Time to get a necropsy to be sure, for the sake of your other chickens, and your sanity.

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq

Theres a list of Marek's-like things on that page.

 

[Spepper]

Thanks everyone for you help. Unfortunately by time we found out he was dead it was too late in the day to be able to do anything more than bury him before going to an appointment we had. Otherwise I would have tried to perform my own amateur dissection of him to try and see what had really happened to kill him.