Bruised vents on 2 likely new layers (pics)

[tickens33]

2 of my chickens have mildly bruised and slightly bloody vents.

They are all about 5 months old. I’m not 100% certain that the bruised chickens are laying, but we found a couple of small eggs today (whereas the eggs from the hens that started laying a couple weeks ago are much bigger now) so my guess is this is irritation of the tissue from a first egg.

The first picture is the vent without touching it, the 2nd picture exposed the redness when I pulled on the skin.

These are both pictures of the same chicken, but the other one looks just like this.

 

[Eggcessive]

I would watch the others since they may be pecking their vents. That looks like green bruising. Vent pecking can lead to cannibalism if not stopped. Do they have enough room in the coop and enough nest boxes? Even with enough nest boxes they can fight over the same ones. Do you have any cockerels or roosters?

 

[tickens33]

I would watch the others since they may be pecking their vents. That looks like green bruising. Vent pecking can lead to cannibalism if not stopped. Do they have enough room in the coop and enough nest boxes? Even with enough nest boxes they can fight over the same ones. Do you have any cockerels or roosters?

Regarding space- we have 7 chickens, they have ~70sq ft outdoors and ~48sq ft in the coop, not including the nest boxes. The run is enclosed and they have 24/7 indoor/outdoor access.

It’s not a *ton* of space for them, we are in the process of expanding the run, but it’s at the recommended minimums I’ve read. And since they can go in and out as they please, they have plenty of options for taking space from each other.

They have 4 nest boxes but they just lay all over the coop, which is another thing we’re trying to deal with right now I may need to make a different post about that if we can’t figure it out.

No cockerels (that we’re aware of, I think we’d know by now).

We don’t live on the property where we keep our chickens, and we unfortunately can’t be there daily. However, whenever I have observed them have altercations, it’s usually a single peck and then the pecked hen runs away. That’s if they make physical contact at all. Usually they just ruffle their feathers at each other.

One time we had a hen’s feathers get pulled before they had outdoor access, but we haven’t had that problem again since they were able to go outside. Our smallest 2 chickens have had scabs on their beaks a couple times, which could be from the others pecking them, but those are different chickens than the ones with the bruises. I think the ones with the bruises are higher in the pecking order… but I don’t know for sure. Other than those instances, we really don’t observe much aggression between them.

 

[Eggcessive]

You might use an old golf ball in each nest box or purchase some of the heavy fake eggs that Tractor Supply sells. My pullets and hens learned very fast where to start laying, and I used those for many years.

 

[tickens33]

You might use an old golf ball in each nest box or purchase some of the heavy fake eggs that Tractor Supply sells. My pullets and hens learned very fast where to start laying, and I used those for many years.

We have fake eggs in the boxes, and have tried to make them dark and inviting compared to the rest of the coop… there are ramps going up to the boxes and a lip on the bottom for privacy. The only thing we haven’t tried yet is adding curtains. And I don’t know if curtains would help since they seem to prefer laying in the middle of the coop as opposed to having privacy anyways :/ They sit in the boxes all the time and even build nests there but never lay eggs there. Like i I said, I probably need to make a separate post cuz we have already tried a lot of ideas.

I’m thankful you took the time to reply Hopefully the butt bruises get better soon…