Hi all, One of my chickens seems perfectly healthy but yet has poop all around her butt feathers. Her vent is clear and not pasted shut. Does this happen from time to time? Should I try to give her a bath?
It happens alot to my chickens but as long as the vent is clear you shouldn't need to give her a bath.If the vent becomes blocked try using baby wipes to clear it, if that doesn't clear it put some peroxcide on the bottom (gently)
Give her yogurt and here is a page by Sally Sunshine that talks about Vent Gleet wich there is a good chance your chicken has it. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/vent-gleet-aka-nasty-chicken-butt
One of my first 8 chicks, a WPR named Juno had a perpetually nasty butt. In the begining, I thought it was "pasty butt" and cleaned her several times a day, tried every remedy offered on this forum or on the internet, but the girl continued to have poop stuck to her rear almost every time she went. As she got older, the condition continued. I don't know whether Vent Gleet could have been the cause, but I did bring her to the vet who suggested putting her on antibiotics (no help) I tried active yoghurt and active ACV (no help). I suspect that if I had been either a commercial enterprise or a dedicated breeder, Juno would have been culled at an early age. I suspect that she had some genetic deformity. Her tail feathers curled down rather than up like my other hens. She also walked with a funny waddle that the other hens didn't have. It seems that the others can sort of fluff their feathers out of the way when they poop but Juno couldn't and the poop just ran down her backside and stuck (even when I trimmed the feathers under her vent) While l-o-v-e suggests that it isn't a big deal if the vent isn't blocked,poor Juno had so much poop stuck to her bottom that it looked to be weighing her down, and in the winter it was a big icy mass and I can't believe that it wasn't a health hazzard. Anyway, during her first winter I took her into the house and bathed her in the kitchen sink every week or two. It was a long, drawn-out process because she had to be completely blowed dry before I could put her outside in the cold. She was pretty tollerant of it and I'm sure she felt much better when her feathers were clean and dry. Once the cold winter was over, I decided to see whether she could do with more infrequient baths. One morning, about 3 weeks after her last bath, I found her dead in the coop. I don't know if she died because I went to long without bathing her, or for some other reason, but I can't help but wonder if she'd still be around if I had continued to bathe her every 7 to 14 days.
It doesn't look nearly as nasty as those gleet pictures! Although I will try some of the suggestions mentioned.
I have been told that putting 5-6 Tblspoons of vinegar per gallon of water helps prevent the "back door pasties"
