It’s not uncommon to find that your hen has a clump of poop stuck to the feathers surrounding her vent. However, you may still be frightened by this, assuming some sort of illness is the cause. In some cases this is true, but more often than not a much simpler explanation can be found. A chicken with a “Lazy Cloaca” may experience this issue often. To put it simply, the chicken will not expel her droppings with enough forces, resulting in a clump of them to form on her rear end. The fix on the situation is relatively simple though, and I’d like to share what I did today to help Bubbles’ problem which had gotten a little out of hand.
The feathers directly below her vent were covered in droppings, to the point where her feathers were clumped together in the mass, sagging and looking quite pitiful. I took it upon myself to help her out a bit since It isn’t the first time she’s gone through this.
Step 1: After washing your hands, and finding your “Chicken Bidet” (a plastic tote/tub) place the chicken inside, with a hose on hand already. Make sure to use gloves, because handling a chickens droppings is fairly unsanitary. I suggest setting the hose to “mist” and soaking the area for 30 seconds. It will moisten the hard clump and make it easy for you to remove.
Step 2- Massage the clump and pull out as much as you can, as gently as you can so as not to irritate her vent. Spray it occasionally to see what the water can get off. Continue to do this until the clump is completely removed. Try your best not to pull out her feathers, and if you are afraid you can’t remove the mass without doing so, resort to clipping her feathers instead.
Step 3- Continue to soak the vent feathers with water after removing the poop. Once you are certain that they’re as clean as they can get, you can let her go. However, make sure that her feathers are as dry as possible before she has access to the other birds. An exposed vent is an invitation for others to peck, and vent pecking should be avoided and discouraged at all costs.
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Just a quick note: Lazy Cloaca is usually a recurring issue, meaning that in most cases it’s just part of the way the bird is. This process may need to be repeated fairly often, but is relatively quick and easy. However, The issue can also be triggered by illness/weakness from injury, and lethargy.
Hopefully this was a help! Thank you for reading
Step 1: After washing your hands, and finding your “Chicken Bidet” (a plastic tote/tub) place the chicken inside, with a hose on hand already. Make sure to use gloves, because handling a chickens droppings is fairly unsanitary. I suggest setting the hose to “mist” and soaking the area for 30 seconds. It will moisten the hard clump and make it easy for you to remove.
•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Just a quick note: Lazy Cloaca is usually a recurring issue, meaning that in most cases it’s just part of the way the bird is. This process may need to be repeated fairly often, but is relatively quick and easy. However, The issue can also be triggered by illness/weakness from injury, and lethargy.
Hopefully this was a help! Thank you for reading
