Butt feathers grew in abnormally. Need advice!

[madfisch]

At the beginning of June, I came back from being away for a couple nights (family was watching my hens) and I discovered that my hen with the notoriously dirty butt (i clean it frequently) had developed flystrike. Luckily because we caught it quickly, it was as mild as a case of flystrike can really be. Still hellish, emotionally taxing, and time consuming, but we were able to manage it with the help of a lot of the detailed guides online (https://the-chicken-chick.com/flystrike-in-backyard-chickens-causes/comment-page-1/). Once there were no more maggots, we expected her diarrhea would clear up, but after a couple of days I realized that she probably had vent gleet and that was likely what attracted the flies in the first place. We medicated her with nystatin and her poops and appetite have significantly improved if not altogether gone back to normal, her wounds healed amazingly with vetericyn, but her butt is still getting very dirty when the looser poops don’t project far enough. Obviously, a bald poopy butt is something I can’t send her back out to the coop with or we will end up right back where we started, so I really want to get this fixed. While we were treating the flystrike, we noticed that a lot of her butt feathers had super thick, hard casings that the feathers seemed unable to come out of and they had only grown less than a centimeter each, some of them even curling back towards the skin like they wanted to grow back in. Some of them also have dark tips on the casings. We tried manually removing the sheaths a bit or gently softening them with some tweezers but they would not budge. For maintenance reasons, we trimmed most of them down as much as possible in hopes that they would come back in more normally, but although they are much straighter now she still doesn’t seem to be opening them up. I don't know if this is because she is unable to get at them for some reason (i know she can reach back there, because when i clean her butt with a toothbrush she readily bites at it) or if they are just too hard for her to get off, but I have seen pretty much nothing about this online. I don’t know if she has some weird mutation that made this happen (rest of her feathers are totally clean and normal), or if maybe just having poops on the butt so often made the feathers grow in strangely.





TLDR: My chicken's butt feathers were short, and trapped inside very hard thick sheaths, I trimmed them in hopes they would grow back normally, but they still won't open up and become fluffy to re-cover her bald butt. Did something external cause this and is it possible for me to fix it or do I just need to keep trimming and let it resolve on its own?


Photos:
- before we trimmed a lot of them down again. it’s hard to see, some of the sheaths have little black tips. feathers look almost like they are just wet but the little curls are VERY hard.

- how they are growing in now.

- how most of her poops look now that they have normalized (the water is just from me washing her butt). she’s been eating pellets/pellet mash and other supplemental stuff like egg, rice, and tuna.

- how some of her poops are still looking, not sure if it’s something i should still be concerned about

I have a few other other questions that have come up throughout this entire month long process so if you are familiar with gleet, sour crop, or coop maintenance, any and all advice and suggestions are hugely appreciated.

 

[Debbie292d]

Hi!

How old is this hen and what breed? Is there a chance of any frizzle in her breeding?

Sometimes when chickens moult or lose feathers, they grow back in a totally different color and texture. This seems to be a bit of a stark change though.

Since she may have had vent gleet in the past, and possible crop issues, I'd give her probiotics two or three times a week, which might also help her digestive tract. You can buy powders for their water, or things like Greek yogurt are very high in probiotics.

To help her feathers out, I'd up her protein for a couple of weeks too. You could give her scrambled eggs, tuna in water, etc., and also vitamin water, like Poultry Cell or Nutri-Drench. Only do the vitamin water for a couple of days, then regular or probiotic water the next. Then another day of vitamin water, etc. Giving vitamin water constantly for days back to back can exacerbate diarrhea.

All-flock versions of chicken feed are around 18-20% protein, so next time you need feed, maybe consider changing to one of those. You'd have to provide oyster shell in a separate dish as it has less calcium than layer does.

 

[madfisch]

Hi!

How old is this hen and what breed? Is there a chance of any frizzle in her breeding?

Sometimes when chickens moult or lose feathers, they grow back in a totally different color and texture. This seems to be a bit of a stark change though.

Since she may have had vent gleet in the past, and possible crop issues, I'd give her probiotics two or three times a week, which might also help her digestive tract. You can buy powders for their water, or things like Greek yogurt are very high in probiotics.

To help her feathers out, I'd up her protein for a couple of weeks too. You could give her scrambled eggs, tuna in water, etc., and also vitamin water, like Poultry Cell or Nutri-Drench. Only do the vitamin water for a couple of days, then regular or probiotic water the next. Then another day of vitamin water, etc. Giving vitamin water constantly for days back to back can exacerbate diarrhea.

All-flock versions of chicken feed are around 18-20% protein, so next time you need feed, maybe consider changing to one of those. You'd have to provide oyster shell in a separate dish as it has less calcium than layer does.

she is a white leghorn and i haven’t seen any signs of frizzle on her in the past but that did occur to me! i have recover 911 in her water right now to get her those probiotics after being on the medicated water. she has been getting a variety of foods but i will focus more on the protein. thank you!!!