Dirty, swollen butt.

[kh1988]

One of my RSL hens has a dirty but area, like diarrhea dripping down her feathers. Also, the area below the vent appears to be swollen. She eats and drinks and runs around with the others as usual. The only thing i notice is she is always last to get off the roost in the morning, the others run out as soon as i open the door, but she will stay behind for 5 or 10 min, other than that, acts normal. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

[Eggcessive]

Can you post any pictures of your hen’s vent after it has been cleaned? I have had a couple with a very swollen lower abdomen below the vent. Because of the swelling, droppings tend to get caught on the way down, and loose ones especially. My hens probably have internal laying, and may have solid egg matter or fluid, or growths inside there. Does your hen ever lay eggs? It can be a challenge to keep the droppings off when there is swelling there, and those droppings can scald the skin. They need to be cleaned off frquently, or the droppings can accumulate.

 

[azygous]

Is there a bad smell associated with it? If so, it may be vent gleet.

Have you looked very closely at the skin where it's swollen? Mites can appear like dirt on the feathers under the vent, and they can be very irritating to the skin.

 

[azygous]

Vent gleet is very difficult to successfully treat. The first step is to wash her well and dry her. It's a yeast infection so probiotics can help tremendously. Yogurt can also help. It can take a while to clear up, and you need to keep her clean in the meantime or her skin can become very irritated from it. It can also be passed on to others.

However, worms can also cause these symptoms. I would go ahead and worm her and clean her up, then see what the results are.

 

[Tamigirl37]

I have a chicken who in the past few days has been standing very upright with her tail feathers dragging the ground. She reminds me of a Penguin. Her butt is a little dirty, but her belly isn't swollen. We just had to put a girl down due to her getting really big in her belly area to the point that she could hardly walk. She was old and quite laying about a year ago. I chalked it up to inner laying. I'm not sure though. She gained weight really fast. Anyways now this girl is doing somewhat the same but without the weight gain. I'm not sure what to do. I soak them and clean them up when this happens and most of the time they recover. This girl is maybe 2 years old. She is slowly getting around but is eating and drinking well. Any suggestions?

 

[kh1988]

I havnt gotten close enough to notice a smell, ill grab her tomorrow and take a closer look and smell. The feathers are definatly wet like diarrhea looking. If it is stinky and it's vent gleet what is the easiest treatment?

 

[kh1988]

Thank you, what is the easiest worm treatment? Does the whole flock need to be treated? I have 6 hens and a roo

 

[azygous]

Safeguard is the best, easiest, all-purpose wormer. One dose and you're done, except for a followup in a week or so. Yes, I would treat the entire flock. If one has worms, they all do. They will have ingested the worm eggs from picking up grit and food particles on the ground.

 

[kh1988]

Can you post any pictures of your hen’s vent after it has been cleaned? I have had a couple with a very swollen lower abdomen below the vent. Because of the swelling, droppings tend to get caught on the way down, and loose ones especially. My hens probably have internal laying, and may have solid egg matter or fluid, or growths inside there. Does your hen ever lay eggs? It can be a challenge to keep the droppings off when there is swelling there, and those droppings can scald the skin. They need to be cleaned off frquently, or the droppings can accumulate.

Ill try to get a picture tommorow. Not sure exactly how often she is laying, but she does lay. It is possible that she is laying slightly less though, most days i get 5 eggs, occasionally 6, (6 hens). I used to get 6 pretty much every day, but the slight decrease may be from the cold weather here too, hard to keep tract of who's laying.

 

[kh1988]

I inspected the hen a little further today and i don't believe it to be vent gleet. The vent itself appears to be fairly clean, no yellow smelly discharge. The feathers bellow are a bit poopy i think because the swelling is causing the poop to hit the feathers. The area below the vent is definatly swollen, like there's a tennis ball inside her she's carrying around. It appears as though some of the feathers below the vent are missing, although it could just appear that way due to the swelling. I placed a small container of plain greek yogurt in the run today, and they all scarfed it right down. Hopefully if she just happened to eat something bad the yogurt will help. I watched her for about 45 min and she is walking around, eating, and drinking as normal. I havnt gotten the worm treatment yet, but i would think they would all be showing symptoms if worms, right? Any other thoughts?