[Old_chapel_apple_juice]

Can anyone please tell me what this is I'm really hoping its not what I think it is because if I'm right she will have to be dispatched
Please help

[mojocafa]

Hope ing someone comes along soon with an answer as I have a bird presenting like this as well. After discussion with vet, I am popping into surgery tomorrow so he can have a look but would be interested in any replies as well. Will let you know tomorrow what vet says

[Old_chapel_apple_juice]

From what I've been told it's microplysma which unfortunately means she needs to be dispatched
I'm hoping its not that
But it's highly contagious to the others and will kill them too
I need to ring the vets tommroow to get a prescription for baytrill for the others
I've heard it can be caught from pheasants and crows
So I'll be out from now on with the rifle at the crows
Unfortunately nothing I can do about the pheasants we have here as its out of season ATM

[shetlandpaul]

could just be a simple sinus infection. would still take to vets just to confirm.

[mojocafa]

In my opinion, it's not mycoplasma,

[lord flynn]

doesn't look like myco but yes, you need a vet.


fwiw vets I talk to reckon that the majority of backyard flocks have some degree of myco and if you free range and cull your flock because of it, the next lot are likely to get it anyway. So talk to a knowledgeable and realistic vet about the options, depending on what you're doing with them (breeding/showing/selling stock), it doesn't necessarily mean culling asymptomatic animals (they'll not all die with myco but they will become carriers).

[doganjo]

Is it not a tumour?  Is she eating and drinking normally?

[Eve]

Old Chapel Apple Juice, when I first discovered a bird of mine had mycoplasma I was suddenly worried about culling too, as some websites advise it. Turned out it was never necessary and would have been pointless anyway.
Main thing is to find a vet competent in bird care, which you may already have.

My first thought when I saw the picture was a bad case of mycoplasma but it could just be an infection. How long has this been going on? How quickly did it develop? What about her breathing? How do her eyes look? Any pus?


If it's mycoplasma the medication luckily costs only a few £. One of my flocks has it and there hasn't been an incidence in nearly two years now, and it only flared up once anyway and only in one or two birds out of all of them. None of the youngsters that joined that flock after that ever had a problem with it. It's everywhere, as someone said apparently most back garden flocks carry it, it's definitely not a reason to cull and it'd be too late anyway.

If it's myco, quite possibly one of your other birds gave it to this chicken in the first place but is just not showing signs itself, so you wouldn't be removing the original carrier by culling. Your flock may have had it for as long as you've had chickens. Think of it this way: they can now give it to the crows 

And if it's myco, then if it flares up again then your vet knows your situation and can just prescribe you the right medication - at least that's what mine did, and it cost me very little as there was no appointment fee, just the meds (the first antibiotics didn't clear it).

Just as a general note, I found that some websites advise culling for about any problem that any decent vet should be able to sort. Funnily enough, these are mostly US websites. Made me panic a few times!

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

[chrismahon]

Looks like a wasp or bee sting to me. Perhaps a sinus infection? I have seen several birds with Mycoplasma and they didn't look like that -just runny nose, wheezing and perhaps bubbles in the eyes. It is present in most flocks, but if they are healthy they seem able to keep it at bay, flaring up only when another problem has depressed their immune system -like a heavy worm burden, or a sudden change in environment.


Hold off on culling her or the rest of the flock. Get a good vet's opinion first.

[Kimbo]

any news yet on this poor hen?

[Old_chapel_apple_juice]

the lump had completly engorged her eye
even if it was not myco i felt that she was in pain so i decided to cull her
it was hard for me to do but i felt that i was protecting the other by culling her and putting her out of her pain
it was a very quick dispatch
im also getting the meds for myco to give to the others just in case
thanks for your info guys im sorry it had been in vain

[Kimbo]

oh no that's sad. poor old dear

[Old_chapel_apple_juice]

shes only a year old too

[Eve]

Sorry to hear that


Just to share my experience, my birds carry the two common strains of mycoplasma, myco S and myco G. We found this out via a blood test which was originally done for Marek's disease and cost around £26.
The tell tale sign for myco with my bird was one side of a face swollen (big pea sized bump, skin stretched over this swelling looked pale), some bubbly / watery eyes, but there was practically no sneezing.


Once she was despatched, did you have a look inside the swelling?

[Womble]

Awww, that's a shame, but probably for the best.

Just for reference, we had mycoplasma a couple of years ago, and we did decide to cull.

We bought a dozen new POL birds from a large local supplier. We quarantined them for a couple of weeks, and all was well. However, shortly after putting them in with our other birds, they all came down with Myco. I believe that the new birds were healthy carriers, possibly due to vaccinations they had as chicks (not sure). Our original birds were all home-grown, and evidently hadn't been exposed to that strain previously, so they went down like flies  .

We culled all the affected birds (really traumatic  ), then re-homed the new ones and the still healthy old ones to people who didn't already have hens. We then started again with day-olds, and frankly it's taken us 2 years to get back to a healthy laying flock. We also only buy in new stock as hatching eggs now.

Why did we cull?  Well, we found out that turkeys and peafowl are very susceptible to myco, so if we kept hens who were carriers, it would pretty soon transmit to the peafowl, and possibly stop us from selling any peafowl, or from having Christmas turkeys in the future.

Of course, we'll never know whether this was the right thing to do, but we are where we are, and I'm ok with that. However, I would say that if we'd only had hens, I absolutely would have just treated with Tylan and only culled the worst affected.

You have my sympathy in any case. Let's just hope this was a wasp sting or similar, and that none of your other birds are affected  .