Does my hen have worms?

[Amandaktj]

She has laid a couple of eggs with blood on them but yesterday it was really bad and we noticed she had lost lots of feathers around her vent and her back feathers were filthy and gross. I thought maybe she was prolapsed until I rinsed her. I am new to having egg laying hens and have NO IDEA about them when it comes to stuff being wrong. A friend with hens says she is pretty sure she has worms. Can anyone help? I want to treat her correctly. Another one has been losing a lot of feathers and I assumed she was molting for the first time, since nothing else seems off with her, but this same friend said she probably actually has worms too.

 

[mamalaoshi]

I'm glad she's acting fine. It should be easier to heal her. I'm not sure what it is but I have some ideas that seem to help my birds when something is not quite right:

Remove everything from your coop and disinfect or dust with food-grade diatomaceous earth (there's opposing opinions about DE but I find it helps with a lot of bug problems and there's little to no risk.) Replace all the bedding and clean off roosts.

Can you move your coop? We had a mite problem but our coop is made of portable wire fencing with a removable roof so we just dusted it and moved it to a new location. If you can't move your coop easily, maybe can you move the run? That way it's harder for her to get reinfected from the ground.

I stir a little DE into the feed. Also you can add some apple cider vinegar to her water. Those are things you can do that allow you to continue eating her eggs. Also dust her bottom with DE- if it's some kind of mite, it will kill the mites.

I'm sure there is more you can do but these are things that help me when I'm not sure what I'm dealing with.

 

[mamalaoshi]

Oh and if it isn't worms, another idea is a yeast infection. That something I just learned about. They can get them if the feed is wet or moldy or too many treats. What is her poop like?