Contagious disease?

[Kiki]

Glad to hear things are getting better for you!

 

[mlcrowley]

Aye Aye Aye. Well, this may be unrelated to our previous loss, but now one of our other hens has a bloody vent area. Not sure how bad it is, as I haven't been able to catch her yet. In the midst of working on catching her to clean her up and see what the cause may be, but thought I'd just ask here and see if this sheds any new light on what may be going on with my little flock. Also, are we ok to still be eating the eggs we're gathering, or should we be tossing them just in case?

With our EE, I know which eggs are hers, but with this one we have 3 that lay light brown, so I'm not sure which are hers and I don't want to make my family sick, I'll toss all our light brown eggs if it's safer as much as I don't want to. Thanks guys. Fingers crossed our Lucy Lou pulls through.

 

[Kiki]

O boy..you poor thing.
Could she possible be pooping blood?
Catch-Up her and find out where the blood is coming from.

 

[mlcrowley]

O boy..you poor thing.
Could she possible be pooping blood?
Catch-Up her and find out where the blood is coming from.

I don't think so, but headed back out to try to grab and bathe her now, they're free range on 4 acres and not the easiest to grab. Her and our barred rock (Ethel) especially, they're quick! I've been inspecting all their usual spots and all the droppings left there and I haven't seen any trace of blood on any poop, it's entirely possible that I just haven't seen it though. An egg in the nest box this morning had a small spot of blood on it and I can see the blood on her feathers around her vent. Taking out some treats to try to catch her now. Will update with any new info. Is it possible that the other girls are picking on her now that the bottom of the totem pole (Vesta) is gone?

 

[mlcrowley]

Ugh. Was able to catch and inspect her this time, flystrike is the culprit. Gag.

 

[mlcrowley]

May the chicken God's smile on my little flock and help us to keep any more girls from getting sick. Cleaned her up (bless my husband, he's officially my hero for letting me hold her while he searched through all her feathers and removed the culprits), now to thoroughly clean out the coop, we keep it pretty clean I thought, but I'm cleaning everything again now. Off to get vetericyn spray for her bottom as well. It appears as though we caught it early. She has one small open sore and a lot of red irritated skin, but I think we'll be able to get a handle on this, thankfully. Thanks for listening!! I can't even begin to tell you how helpful this site has been to us!

 

[Kiki]

O girl...
It will end...(all this craziness) hopefully soon for you.

Is the egg from "egg bound"?

 

[mlcrowley]

O girl...
It will end...(all this craziness) hopefully soon for you.

Is the egg from "egg bound"?

I don't think so. I think the blood spot on the egg was from her wound. It looks like it dripped on the egg if that makes sense, one small drip. Not smeared at all. She was sitting on the egg when I opened the nesting boxes to gather so, I'm assuming it's hers, but no way to tell for sure. She's been caught sitting on the EE's eggs before, haha. She seems to be feeling better after her bath. Inspection after the bath showed her vent looks totally normal, just one small wound below it which is where the blood was coming from. Blood seems to be entirely unrelated to her vent. She's not the best at cleaning herself, so assuming that's why the flystrike. Gonna have to be extra vigilant about bathing

 

[Kiki]

Fly girl and egg bound are not the same girl right?

 

[mlcrowley]

Fly girl and egg bound are not the same girl right?

Correct. The one we thought might be egg bound was Vesta, an EE. She passed. Not sure it was egg bound though, it's so hard to tell what's going on with them for sure. Fly girl is Lucy, a Production Red