California - Northern

[KernH]

Hello everyone - first timer here with hens - my year old Ameracauna flew over to me when she saw me holding her "sister" - thinking that maybe she was a tad jealous . That's when I noticed some crust have formed on her little "beard" but that's not what concerned me - which by the way my Bertha let me clean the crust off her beard. She seemed to enjoy it. Her bottom - not her vent, I noticed a lot of feathers with very hard crusty poop stuck on about 15-20 feathers ranging in size. it took almost an hour wetting her bottom with warm water and using very mild soap to get rid of the crusty poop - we dried her completely before we put her back in the pen. We didn't see any worms or anything that would resemble one. My question is - is this a normal occurrence ? She was a trooper through it all . Any thoughts or advice? Thank you in advance.

I have trimmed the feathers around their vents and that seems to help keep them cleaner. Kern

 

[SilkiesForEver]

Quote: That sounds great. Thanks!

 

[h2oratt]

That sounds great. Thanks!

What kind of sulphur do you buy?

 

[MamaPenguin]

I have trimmed the feathers around their vents and that seems to help keep them cleaner. Kern

thank you for your suggestion - however it is not anywhere near her vent but my hubby and I actually washed off all the dried poop stuck on her feathers

 

[Sylvester017]

Hello everyone - first timer here with hens - my year old Ameracauna flew over to me when she saw me holding her "sister" - thinking that maybe she was a tad jealous . That's when I noticed some crust have formed on her little "beard" but that's not what concerned me - which by the way my Bertha let me clean the crust off her beard. She seemed to enjoy it. Her bottom - not her vent, I noticed a lot of feathers with very hard crusty poop stuck on about 15-20 feathers ranging in size. it took almost an hour wetting her bottom with warm water and using very mild soap to get rid of the crusty poop - we dried her completely before we put her back in the pen. We didn't see any worms or anything that would resemble one. My question is - is this a normal occurrence ? She was a trooper through it all . Any thoughts or advice? Thank you in advance.

Ameraucanas or any heavily under-downed breed will accumulate dried poop on the down under the vent. We had to wash our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana so often that it is one of the reasons I won't get another. It took an hour or more carefully getting all the dirt, poop, pebbles, debris, carefully washing it off with 4 to 6 baby shampoo applications and then taking forever to blow-dry all that fluffy underdown!!! There are other reasons also that we will not get more Ameraucanas (or EEs) but washing those fluffy tushes is a REAL chore and takes patience to get it all off gently. I thought the poor thing had worms or cocci or something but it was only that everything sticks to those very soft feathers! As fluffy as my bantam Silkies are I never had to take an hour or more to get their tush-down clean and blow-dried because they aren't as heavily under-downed as the large fowl fluffies.

 

[h2oratt]

Ameraucanas or any heavily under-downed breed will accumulate dried poop on the down under the vent.  We had to wash our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana so often that it is one of the reasons I won't get another.  It took an hour or more carefully getting all the dirt, poop, pebbles, debris, carefully washing it off with 4 to 6 baby shampoo applications and then taking forever to blow-dry all that fluffy underdown!!!  There are other reasons also that we will not get more Ameraucanas (or EEs) but washing those fluffy tushes is a REAL chore and takes patience to get it all off gently.  I thought the poor thing had worms or cocci or something but it was only that everything sticks to those very soft feathers!  As fluffy as my bantam Silkies are I never had to take an hour or more to get their tush-down clean and blow-dried because they aren't as heavily under-downed as the large fowl fluffies.

Would you cinder an Orpington heavily downed

 

[Lynn Manes]

Hello everyone - first timer here with hens - my year old Ameracauna flew over to me when she saw me holding her "sister" - thinking that maybe she was a tad jealous . That's when I noticed some crust have formed on her little "beard" but that's not what concerned me - which by the way my Bertha let me clean the crust off her beard. She seemed to enjoy it. Her bottom - not her vent, I noticed a lot of feathers with very hard crusty poop stuck on about 15-20 feathers ranging in size. it took almost an hour wetting her bottom with warm water and using very mild soap to get rid of the crusty poop - we dried her completely before we put her back in the pen. We didn't see any worms or anything that would resemble one. My question is - is this a normal occurrence ? She was a trooper through it all . Any thoughts or advice? Thank you in advance.

Ameraucanas or any heavily under-downed breed will accumulate dried poop on the down under the vent.  We had to wash our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana so often that it is one of the reasons I won't get another.  It took an hour or more carefully getting all the dirt, poop, pebbles, debris, carefully washing it off with 4 to 6 baby shampoo applications and then taking forever to blow-dry all that fluffy underdown!!!  There are other reasons also that we will not get more Ameraucanas (or EEs) but washing those fluffy tushes is a REAL chore and takes patience to get it all off gently.  I thought the poor thing had worms or cocci or something but it was only that everything sticks to those very soft feathers!  As fluffy as my bantam Silkies are I never had to take an hour or more to get their tush-down clean and blow-dried because they aren't as heavily under-downed as the large fowl fluffies.

Oh shoot. I had 2 EE's and never had a problem with poo butts, but I just bought six 2 month old Americauna hens.I sure hope I didn't give myself more work than I bargained for. I just wanted some pretty colored egg layers since we lost our EE, Goldie, not long ago. And hello to everyone. I've been awol from BYC for a while. Stayed busy with the birds and bunnies and dogs and tortoise,sold my geese,lost my 16.5 year old Yorkiegirl,inherited a cockatiel and got married in June so alot of changes have taken place here the last few months, but it's good to be back. Now I need to figure out how to change my name on BYC I'm looking forward to reading what everyone has been doing,and welcome MamaPenquin

 

[ronott1]

Oh shoot. I had 2 EE's and never had a problem with poo butts, but I just bought six 2 month old Americauna hens.I sure hope I didn't give myself more work than I bargained for. I just wanted some pretty colored egg layers since we lost our EE, Goldie, not long ago. And hello to everyone. I've been awol from BYC for a while. Stayed busy with the birds and bunnies and dogs and tortoise,sold my geese,lost my 16.5 year old Yorkiegirl,inherited a cockatiel and got married in June so alot of changes have taken place here the last few months, but it's good to be back. Now I need to figure out how to change my name on BYC I'm looking forward to reading what everyone has been doing,and welcome MamaPenquin

You can have the name changed once. Make sure you like it.

@Happy Chooks can help.

 

[KernH]

Ameraucanas or any heavily under-downed breed will accumulate dried poop on the down under the vent. We had to wash our Blue Wheaten Ameraucana so often that it is one of the reasons I won't get another. It took an hour or more carefully getting all the dirt, poop, pebbles, debris, carefully washing it off with 4 to 6 baby shampoo applications and then taking forever to blow-dry all that fluffy underdown!!! There are other reasons also that we will not get more Ameraucanas (or EEs) but washing those fluffy tushes is a REAL chore and takes patience to get it all off gently. I thought the poor thing had worms or cocci or something but it was only that everything sticks to those very soft feathers! As fluffy as my bantam Silkies are I never had to take an hour or more to get their tush-down clean and blow-dried because they aren't as heavily under-downed as the large fowl fluffies.

My Ameraucana that I trimmed that underdown off has been fine since. I can't see that trimming it some hurts anything. Kern

 

[All Ball]

Kind of limited on the Pita choices though. And my blue egg laying project. I haven't got a single  Blue egg layer yet. I set a bunch of CLB eggs but none were fertile. The one Legbar EE cross I got is male. I have a white layer in with the Legbar boy too but she has spent too much time broody and currently isnt laying. (Decided to go fake broody about a week ago)

Hoping for September hatching
Ark Blues, Barred Hollands if I can find them and Pitas of course.

Caychris, any idea why your CL eggs weren't fertile? I knew I was getting bullseyes and gave a few eggs to someone - only one out of 3 or 4 hatched - a girl thankfully. Parents about a year old. We were thinking maybe because they came from sibs after a few gens of line-breeding...