8-week old Wyandotte with badly malformed vent - do I need to cull?

[kimbobim]

If this is the wrong area, please let me know where I should post this. I have an 8-week old Wyandotte that we got with a batch of other chicks the same age. At 5 weeks she was smaller than the others and missing most of the feathers on her rear. The seller said she had had pasty butt and had been cleaning her every day. She was definitely the runt of the group and was being picked on by the larger chicks. But she seemed alert and healthy, so we brought her home and named her Poppy. When I cleaned her up, I could see that her vent didn't look right - it looks like a drawstring bag that's pulled tight (like a dog or cat's anus, if you know what I mean), rather than a smooth curve like the other birds'. I wasn't sure if the missing feathers / weird looking bum was from being picked by the older birds, so we kept feeding her and cleaning her messy rear. Being with a smaller group, she isn't picked on here and some of her fluffy feathers are coming in, but NONE of the feathers above her vent are growing properly.

She is growing, but much slower than the other birds. When we got her she was smaller than the others, but now is noticeably much, much smaller. She eats and drinks, but her poop is much runnier/slimier than the other birds, with bits of undigested food showing clearly in it (grass, etc.). So she constantly has a messy rear. She also seems malnourished, despite all she's eating - her little bones show through her skin, where the others girls don't.

Today, while I was cleaning her up, I got a really close look at her bum and realized that she has TWO openings on her rear, the lower one was kind of hidden in the folds of skin. The upper opening also is red - about half of the edge seems to be herniated or prolapsed. Also, there are stiff tail feathers growing from inside the top opening. I picked up all our older birds and the other 8-week olds and looked at all their vents to see if there was any sort of differences between them - they all looked essentially the same and Poppy's was definitely seriously deformed, with the two openings. I've tried to get pictures of it, but her bum is so tiny I can't get it to show up right.

My question is, can she possibly live like this and be healthy? I'm afraid she might have other internal problems and end up being egg bound, etc. The runny poo and partially digested food in it makes me wonder if her intestines aren't absorbing things properly. She is such a sweet bird, I feel sick about considering culling her, but I also don't want her to suffer because we're too attached to her.

Does anyone have experience with this, or have any suggestions?

thanks!

 

[chickbea]

Is it at all possible for you to post a picture?
I'm thinking that the vent is at least partially prolapsed, which is why you are seeing two openings. The vent is the exit point for both feces and eggs - the eggs come down the oviduct and the poo comes down another route and they meet above the vent exit. It sounds like you are seeing both openings due to the prolapse. There may also be a torsion, which would account for the puckered look you describe.
I'm really not sure what you should do. If it were me, I would take a trip to your vet (or an avian vet if you can find one). With their knowledge of anatomy, perhaps they could rotate things and get them all put back where they belong. If you are really attached to her it may be worth the expense. If not, they could humanely euth her for you.
I'm sorry you and your little chick are going through this.

 

[Wynette]

I really think you need to get a good picture - your description is REALLY good, better than most I see. If you have a digital camera, put it on the Macro setting (usually it's denoted by a small flower) which is for taking close-ups.

 

[kimbobim]

Thank you so much for the replies! I took some pictures with the Macro setting, hopefully they'll show this better than I can explain. I am working on getting the pictures from my camera onto the computer and will hopefully post them later tonight.

I'm afraid my use of the word 'prolapse' has created a wrong impression. I do not believe she has a true prolapse. She does not have protruding tissues, or in any way resemble any of the pictures that I have seen of prolapses. Instead, less than half of the very rim of the upper hole/opening is red and looks like it is tissue that should be inside (kind of like your lip turns to the outside of your mouth, it is red and wet, but is sometimes hidden by the other folds/puckers of skin). And only a tiny portion of the rim is like that - much less than .25 inch, I'd estimate. The rest of the area around the opening is all puckered and the color of the rest of her skin.

Also, if she was truly prolapsed, then would the stiff tail feathers (I don't know what else to call them) be growing out of deep inside her upper oviduct opening? That seems backwards from what a prolapse would be to me - internals coming out, rather than external feathers going inside. Some of those feathers are growing from more than half an inch inside that hole/orifice/opening - she is so tiny that this seems a significant distance to me.

What I should say, is that she does not appear to have a vent at all, at least not as chickens should have. I've been reading about chicken anatomy, looking at diagrams, etc., and understand how the two systems both exit the vent, that there should be one opening on the surface of their rear. I've spent more time examining chicken bums in the last few days than I ever thought possible - both Poppy's and our 9 other chickens of various ages (who all seem to think I've lost my mind, but are tolerating my examinations patiently

).

On Poppy, the two holes/openings are an inch apart on her tiny bum, with regular looking skin between them. They do not have a common opening at all, there is no covering flap of skin or sphincter muscles (I'm assuming that's what they're called - I mean the muscles that open/close the vent) enclosing either of these - they are two completely separate holes on the surface of her bum. Until this morning, I thought her vent was malformed because of the puckered opening I could see, but had assumed that it was in fact a vent for both eggs and poop. But then I saw today that the poop was coming out of an entirely separate tiny little opening an inch lower down.

I'm concerned that since her bum/vent area is so malformed and lacking the necessary muscles and support structures, she will not be able to lay eggs properly and will end up egg bound, or suffer true prolapses - both of which sound terribly painful to me. I've watched her pooping and it is all messed up, too - where the other chickens' vents seem to protrude just slightly to push the poop out and away from their bodies, Poppy's just oozes out of her lower opening and runs down her bum.

I hope this makes sense. I'm sorry this is turning out to be so long - I'm trying to include all the information I can think of in hopes it may sound familiar to someone. Thanks again for the help!

 

[threehorses]

Well, to me, the key is "eight weeks old" She's made it this long so I'd keep her. Just remember if you're show breeding.

If she didn't have a vent, she'd be dead by day 2 or 3.

As for laying, I'd wait and see first. Just be sure (as with all birds) to keep up with calcium/vitamin D, and keep the phosphorus levels in the feed down. In other words: fresh laying pellets always, oyster shell or another calcium free choice, apple cider vinegar (1 ounce per gallon of water) and/or yogurt once a month for D at least (if not weekly when they're really cranking eggs or about to lay).

I'd say give her a shot.

 

[Wynette]

Kim, without seeing pics and from how you are describing her, I hate to sound negative, but it sounds to me like the most humane thing for her would be to dispatch her. You indicate she's lost a lot of weight...this girl could be struggling to gain weight and it could be a very slow battle for her, which she'll untimately die from in the end. It SOUNDS like a very bad malformation to me, but I'm not vet. If she truly is as thin as it sounds like she is, I think your guess that she may have other intestinal issues further on back from her vent is probably right on. Please post the pics when you can, and good luck with her. Bless you for trying so hard to learn as much as you can and trying to make her life easier!