Epic unwell - quiet rattle breathing

Can anyone help, please?

Epic, my young cockerel, has been quiet this morning. I went out to check the henhouse for eggs and noticed Epic standing still, not haring about like his usual manic self, and he was breathing with his mouth open. He pooped while I was observing him , just a small amount & kind of greenish.

I picked him up to check him over and his crop is almost empty. Then I heard a quiet low rattle, held him up to my ear so I could hear better, and the rattle is from his breathing.

I rang the vet to ask advice but their number is temporarily out of service!!!

Any advice, please?

They were all wormed about a month ago.

I should also say he's 5 months (22 weeks) old.

Almost certainly a respiratory infection.  Other symptoms would be sneezing, foamy eyes, nasal discharge.  Possibly Chronic Respiratory infection (Mycoplasmosis) or Infectious Bronchitas but there are several infections of the respiratory system which produce the same or similar symptoms.  A course of antibiotics is the most likely treatment to ease the symptoms from secondary infections.  The problem  is such infections are often chronic and recurring.  If the depression symptoms improve but the rattly breathing continues it will probably be chronic and you might have to decide whether you should continue to treat him or cull. 

It will be important to hear what your vet has to say.
HF

I'd also thought it was a respiratory infection, hf, but it's good news!   

 Air-sac mites, treatable with a (shh, don't tell anyone) dose of Stronghold. I'd also noticed his breath smelled sweet & yeasty.

However, it's also thrown up another problem - not for Epic, but for my girls. He also has tapeworm, a worm that Flubenvet doesn't deal with. One recommended treatment would mean a withdrawal period of 2 months for the egg-layers and another would mean eggs could no longer be eaten at all! but David is going to send a couple of emails to colleagues to see if there's an alternative.

Can anyone out there recommend a good treatment for tapeworm in poultry?

I think I'll give them another course of Flubenvet anyway, just to be on the safe side...

Just wanted to wish you luck with Epic

Epic is back in full voice today and bustling around strutting his stuff like nothing was ever wrong! Fantastic!!  

HF, I've checked the Flubenvet info & it only mentions gape-, round-, caecal, hair- and gizzard worms in the 1% premixture. Could it be that the more commercial wormer is effective against more worm types?

I thought I'd give Marriage's layers with flubenvet a go, but no-one stocks it within 50 miles of here. Has anyone used it that can offer recommendation over mixing it myself? If so, it might be worth ordering it to be sent.

Just checked "Poultry Health and Disease" Paul McMullen which has the following info.

"Cestodes are tapeworms that are seen in many species; they may not be host specific. Most have intermediate invertebrate hosts such as beetles or earthworms.
 
Signs
 •It is doubtful if any signs are produced under most circumstances.  

Treatment
 
Flubendazole is effective at a 60 ppm in diet, however it may not have a zero withdrawal in commercial egg layers. Check your local regulations."

I don't recommend this book for backyard keepers incidentally, it's expensive and aimed at vets who treat commercial flocks and assumes you have the back up of a pathology lab to confirm diagnosis.  Many conditions which might be treated in a backyard pet aren't mentioned as the commercial treatment would be to cull clean up and restock, ie any treatment or disease which has an economic impact in a commercial flock is treated entirely differently to how a individual pet might be treated.  If you want a good backyard chicken book at a very reasonable price, though it does focus on US practise, get Gail Damerow's "Chicket Health Handbook" but beware if you read it you will likely become a hypochondriac.  Also beware this isn't a cookbook of folksey chicken cures.  Most conditions aren't treatable by amateurs if at all and diagnosis is very tricky but it does give you a lot of practical information too.  If you want an alternative medicine cookbook of magic potions become a herbalist and shop on the Global Herbs website.

I'd never use the premedicated Marriages feed as doing it yourself is so simple and you can adjust the dose if you need to.  Use pellets slightly darkened with corn oil and sprinkle on the flubenvet mixing well.
HF