Gimpy has a butt problem now... Photo included. Help please.

[amarook]

Gimpy is my little spraddle leg tike.

It will be 4 weeks tomorrow. I just had everyone outside in the temporary pen, and my niece pointed out that his/her "butt is purple!"

I also noticed it looks like it's tail feathers are missing...

Anyone know what this is, seen this before, know what I should do about it?

When I was taking the pictures it looked like his vent was puckering.

 

[hennypenny9]

Is his vent swollen? Is he pooping okay?

I'm not sure what it is, but maybe with a bit more info someone else will!

 

[birdlover]

Not sure if there's really a problem but I AM sure of one thing. Chick/chicken vents do pucker!!!

If the feathers aren't covering the thing, it'll wink at you every time!!! Anyway, (and this is just my opinion) it looks to me like his feathers haven't come in yet and also it looks like he had a loose poop and it made the feathers under his vent look like that.

 

[MandyH]

That's what a chicken butt looks like.

 

[MandyH]

oops

 

[amarook]

My other chick's butts don't look like that.

 

[MandyH]

If it's not bloody or swollen and no visible sign of trauma, it's most likely ok. Take my word for it I am a nurse, and eventhough all butts resemble each other, they all do have some slight differences LOL!!

 

[birdlover]

 

[allisojo]

I had a young BO cockerel whose butt looked just like that from about the time he was four-weeks old until he was about 10-weeks old. He picked at it a lot, and it looked like he was having a hard time pooping. In fact, he even picked at his vent while he was pooping sometimes, as though it hurt him to go poop. I was really concerned. Ultimately, his feathers came in. He stopped picking and everything was fine. He's probably about 9-months now and is happy and healthy, living on a friend's farm.

I just kept an eye on it to (1) clean any pasty poop on his butt, (2) make sure he was, in fact, pooping, and (3) not picking at it to make it bleed. Whatever "it" was, if anything, he got over "it." Good luck.

 

[KristaChickenWhisperer]

I raised a few silkies from chicks a few years ago and when they pooed the poo with stick to their rear end fluff and it would peel off some of their fluff when I cleaned them. This is what all their butts looked like until they grew up and didn't have issues with poo getting stuck to their fluff.

As others have said, as long as it doesn't look swollen, bloody or there's no sign of trauma then it looks like a normal chicky butt!