Bad start to the weekend unfortunately. I went to the coop after work on Friday and did an egg check to discover that Zeus, my Aracauna cockerel of about 23 weeks of age, was laying in one of the nest boxes. I picked him up and to him out to find bubbles in the corner of his eye and a very runny nose. Also his comb and face had turned a very dark red colour which deffinately turned on the panick signals. We quickly put the other birds in the coop whilst it rained and put Zeus in a box to take him to the vets. I got there eventually - no thanks to slow drivers - and got to see a vet almost straight away. While we was in there the vet had a look at him so he sneezed and blew snot on her arm, then pooed all over the table had a coughing fit and unfortunately died
I brings little comfort to know that when I had said we had best put him down it was the right thing to do. I was thinking I couldn't give up on him if he had a chance of survival. Fortunately he helped with the decision.
The vet took faecial and mucus swobs to be sent for analysis. Hopefully I should get results this week some time and get treatment for the other birds.
I'm absolutely gutted since he was my first cockerel and I can't help but feel that this was a complete failure on my behalf. I had been sure that I had heard sneezing through out the flock, even after a couple of weeks of two other birds recovering from an illness - presumably mycoplasma or something similar. However over people had told me I was being paranoid and hearing things. Its hard to be right especially when you're playing with life and death.