Easter egger 6 mo. with smelly heavy brown diarrhea and exposed vent

[vkpaige]

One of our 6 month old Easter Eggers "Gertrude" came down with heavy diarrhea yesterday. It is thick, brown and smelly and clumped on to her tail feathers. We caught her and washed it off with warm water. I had to use scissors to cut off the matted feathers and poop, it was that sticky. She now has a bare vent area; it seems that maybe the poop pulled out the feathers, since it was all hanging in a clump this morning. She is acting fine otherwise; eating, scratching, running around. We have 6 other chickens with her, and they have a coop and free range in a large run. I do feed them kitchen scraps and fruit; she's eating some left over mango right now, but this is not new to her diet.

I am new to chickens, this is our first batch. We are cleaning their coop now. Should I immediately isolate her? None of the other chickens have it...

Thanks.

Viki

 

[emilyweck]

Welcome!

First of all, I would go to the search box just on the right side of this page below the blue topic line and search "pictures of chicken poop". THe first search that comes up, click on it and it will take you to a previous post where someone posted all different kinds of poop. Does your hen's look like any of these? If so, does it say by the photo what the cause is? I found this very helpful with one of my pullets.

Keep us posted and let us know if you have problems finding the search.

Good luck!

 

[vkpaige]

Thanks for the link. Our girl just pooped in the clean coop and it looks exactly like one of the normal ones. She does have a bare bottom though, but I assume the downy feathers will grow back. I never thought I'd be so worried about chicken poop!

viki