EE and Dirty eggs

[ProfNancy]

I have an EE whose tail feathers face downward. She started laying two weeks ago and up until the last two eggs they were clean. now they are dirty. I checked her today and notice poop stuck on her butt. Should I trim off the tail feathers? as I think they're getting in the way? or what? Here's a picture of Anne Bolyn so you can see her rumpless butt.

 

[QueenMisha]

Sounds like vent gleet. Vent gleet can be a condition unto itself, or a symptom of a larger illness. If she's acting healthy, I'd guess it's the former. For now I'd recommend giving her a bath, trimming the feathers around the vent, and adding yogurt and Sav-A-Chick probiotics to her diet for a week or so. Monitor her and see if that improves her droppings.

 

[ProfNancy]

Thank you for the information. Definitely not vent gleet but definitely poop. So since she is rumpless and has three feather that cover her vent facing downward should i trim the,m? I cleaned her up yesterday and she laid a 5pm without being dirty. Checked her this morning and poop on the underside of the rump feathers.

 

[ProfNancy]

Also, they get apple cide w the mother in their water daily and greek yogurt every third day.

 

[QueenMisha]

Yeah, trim them. If it's not gleet then it must just be due to her odd rump.

 

[Blooie]

Before you do anything drastic, you may want to check the bedding in the nest. Sometimes they'll loaf in the nests, or even sleep in them at night, and the nest gets poo in it that doesn't really dry out. So making sure that the nest itself isn't soiled is a good idea. And some hens will occasionally pass a poop just before the egg comes out...if there's already poop in the chute, so to speak, it will get pushed out, and since she's sitting in the nest, it gets on her hiney. I have a Cuckoo Marans like that. <sigh> Good Luck!

 

[ProfNancy]

Thank you all for the input. This is what hubby and I did. He held her while I cleaned her rump then trimmed the underside feathers (I love the three that hang down so didn't want to touch them. I then cleaned the nest boxes and yes, my younger ones hang out there now "practicing" but there was poop there. I gave them all greek yogurt (full fat, not non-0fat) and put apple cider in their water bottles as a "just in case". We did this on Monday and yesterday's egg was spotless. I will check her again today just to see but when I did a visual yesterday there was no drainage just a little bit of poop stuck on those down facing feathers. I may have to cut them.
This is a better picture of her bump but no upward facing tail feathers. She's such a sweetie I would hate for her to be/get sick.