'where's waldo', er, daddy?

had a small scare from our little rooster, daddy, last week. i noticed that his left wattle was a bit swollen. i took a look at it and assumed maybe he had been bitten by a spider or some other creepy crawler. the next morning when letting the girls and daddy out i took another look to see if it had gotten any better, or worse for that matter, and it had. his left wattle felt a bit bigger and his little adam's apple was very swollen. it wasn't swollen the day before. since it had in fact gotten worse i got on the internet and began researching what this could mean. there is so much information out there. how am i supposed to know what is related to what i'm looking for and true? i'm sure the folks asking questions similar to mine were concerned about their rooster's but the amount of responses made it impossible to narrow it down. there were responses that lead to contiguous diseases and to just kill the dang bird, cholera was another, and frost bite. 

i live in the reno area and there aren't very many avian vets out here. my vet office that i take my other animals (chico, daisy and raphael) happened to have a bird vet but he was out for the fourth of july weekend on vacation. we contacted another vet office out here and luckily someone was willing to let me bring daddy in for a check up. it was an experience. we sat in the waiting room for 45 minutes before we were led to a room. one of the vet assistants got me some water and found a spritzer because by this point he had his wings spread from his body, panting, all while in a small cat carrier laying down (this carrier is perfect for the girls but not the rooster; investing in a carrier for him may be wise). the staff that worked here had never had a rooster come in their offices so everyone was very curious when he began crowing. to my amazement he only crowed five times!

the vet took a look at his wattle with a small flashlight and determined that he had been bitten by a cat! i've read that rooster's can be fearless while protecting their hens so he must've gotten in to a beak fight with a stray cat. for sure, daddy had little black scars on his left wattle proving the cat bite. the vet put him on some antibiotics because he was less worried about his wattle and more worried about his adam's apple. if his adam's apple was to get more swollen then he wouldn't be able to breath causing him to stop eating, starve and eventually die. for seven days we have been giving daddy his antibiotics and both his wattle and adam's apple have gone down. not as serious as some of responses i found online or some of the stories the vet told me of the injured chickens he's seen. in the end i felt better having taken him to a vet and avoiding any losses.

he's all better now- crowing more loudly, bossing the girls around, and chillin' outside our back door.