Chickens have poopy bottoms

[juliejohnson805]

I've had chickens for almost 4 years now and this is my first bout with illness. Several of my hens have some poopy stuck in the feathers on their backside. Vents are not infected looking nor oozing stuff. I looked at pics of vent gleet and I don't think it's that. I have discovered that we appear to have some mites and lice. I am picking up some poultry dust this afternoon. I cleaned coop yesterday. Well, not 100% but as much as my 2 mama hens would let me. One small area I could not get too. Honestly, I do not really want to bathe all these chickens, but I can if I have too.
Guess my question is, can the mites/lice cause poopy butt? How can I treat when I am not really sure what they have?

 

[coach723]

You should be able to use the poultry dust on your birds and not have to bathe them. You will need to clean out the coop and treat it also, a spray containing permethrin is most commonly used for that. You will need to do it at least three times at 7 to 10 day intervals, to get any that continue to hatch. https://the-chicken-chick.com/poultry-lice-and-mites-identification/
Poopy butts can have many causes. It could be as simple as drinking a lot of water, or a dietary change. If you have a vet that will do a fecal test for you that would rule out internal parasites as a cause, which can also cause runny droppings. You can also do a mail in option for that test.
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[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

It could also be as simple as they went crazy in the garden and gave themselves diarhea, I've done that to mine before by giving them too many weeds, just this spring after the winter. (Even though they had store bought greens all winter)
when i started giving them weeds again they really went crazy and had green diarhea for 2 days til they got used to eating fresh stuff again i guess... or maybe i accidently pulled a not so good for them weed in the pile pf normal ones, but they usually wont eat stuf thats bad for them...

Anyway have you noticed any worms or anything like that? Are they loose and could have gotten into something they shouldn't have?

 

[juliejohnson805]

I have not noticed any worms and I have been looking. I have noticed the normal variety of normal looking poops. They shouldn't have gotten into anything chemical or harmful like that. I'm thinking I might just give them a good spring cleaning out. Do a batch of molasses water and then hit the probiotics hard. Going to spray them and the coop well. Is the spray safe for baby chicks to be around? I have 2 mama hens right now.

 

[coach723]

I would move them out of the coop, spray it down, keep all of them out until it's dry.
Use the dust on the mama hens, the babies will get dusted by her when they are under her. I generally don't treat broodies and chicks unless it's necessary, if they have mites or lice then it's necessary. Dust is better for the babies since you don't need to worry about them getting chilled from being wet.
Worms are not always visible in droppings. Worms live their entire life cycle in the digestive tract, they are only occasionally expelled in droppings when a bird is carrying a very heavy load, and that is only usually certain types. The worm eggs are microscopic and are shed in the droppings, the test looks for the eggs. I have had plenty of birds carrying worms that did not show any in their droppings. If you think it may be dietary then I would withhold all food and treats other than their regular chicken feed for a few days and see if it improves. Some birds have 'lazy' cloaca's and just don't push droppings out as hard, which can result in soiled feathers around the vent also.

 

[juliejohnson805]

Would it do any harm to just worm them anyway? I have some Wazine.

 

[coach723]

Wazine will only treat large round worms. It won't treat any of the other common parasites. It is always best, whenever possible, to have a fecal done to ID the particular parasite. No point in treating if there are no parasites there, and that way you can use the best medication for whatever is there if something is found. If you absolutely cannot get a fecal done, then I personally would use either Safeguard goat wormer or Valbazen. Those will take care of most parasites except tapeworm. Since you don't know what parasite to treat for you would need to dose 5 days in a row with Safeguard, with Valbazen you could do 2 doses 10 days apart. Both of those are direct dose to each bird using an oral syringe.