glutton

[DLA]

I have one 7 1/2 month old RIR pullet out of nine that is a normal weight, laying regularly and eggs come out clean. She's free of mites, lice, worms. I've checked very carefully. Her comb and wattles are nice and normal. She does not have vent gleet, her vent looks very healthy and normal. Acts normally with one exception, she overdoes it at the water mostly and sometimes food. She has been this way since I got her as a day old chick. Because of this she has pretty loose poop and always has. It smells normal, is a normal color, just very wet. It's not diarrhea. Problem is in cold weather it sometimes freezes in her back feathers which caused me to trim them last time I washed her up, now poor thing has a slightly chapped butt down below her vent (around the vent is normal, no irritation) from the wet/cold combination. I use bag balm to help with that. I don't really mind giving her a spa day every week or so (more often if needed) and cleaning her up, she likes the attention and blow drying. In retrospect, probably would have been better to leave more of the feathers and not cut them so short and just keep cleaning her up and not use the greasy stuff cause it's a pain to get washed back out of the feathers and collects dirt when she dust bathes.
I know chickens often have a tendency to be gluttons because nature designed them to eat the good stuff as quickly as possible before something tries to eat them. I don't have a chicken vet readily available and can't see taking her as she's normal and healthy in every other way. I can't use diaper rash cream cause they all contain zinc which wouldn't be good for her. None of her sisters have this problem.

My questions are 1. Has anyone ever ran into a chicken like this? 2. Is there some other thing I might be missing that would be causing this?

 

[azygous]

She's a perfectly normal chicken, just has a thing for water, and her default poop is watery as a result. I know this is perfectly normal, if annoying, because I had a hen just like this.

Her name was Geobett and she was a Speckled Sussex. I brought her and three other SS home from the feed store, installed them in the brooder, and just as I figured they were all settled in, I hear a very audible, loud, "splort!" I looked in the brooder and there was this tiny chick shooting a stream of liquid poop out of her butt like a little fire hose.

Of course, I thought I had a sick chick. But she didn't act sick. She ate and played and "splorted" and grew. She just had splorts instead of normal poops. She was perfectly healthy and stayed perfectly healthy until she died at age eight.

From time to time, I see a thread with a splorty chick like yours. They're all like my Geobett, perfectly healthy, but with a fixation on drinking water. Watery poop is the natural result.

Good thing you're getting good at cleaning her butt. You have years of it to look forward to.

 

[DLA]

She's a perfectly normal chicken, just has a thing for water, and her default poop is watery as a result. I know this is perfectly normal, if annoying, because I had a hen just like this.

Her name was Geobett and she was a Speckled Sussex. I brought her and three other SS home from the feed store, installed them in the brooder, and just as I figured they were all settled in, I hear a very audible, loud, "splort!" I looked in the brooder and there was this tiny chick shooting a stream of liquid poop out of her butt like a little fire hose.

Of course, I thought I had a sick chick. But she didn't act sick. She ate and played and "splorted" and grew. She just had splorts instead of normal poops. She was perfectly healthy and stayed perfectly healthy until she died at age eight.

From time to time, I see a thread with a splorty chick like yours. They're all like my Geobett, perfectly healthy, but with a fixation on drinking water. Watery poop is the natural result.

Good thing you're getting good at cleaning her butt. You have years of it to look forward to.

Splorty chicken - LOL, perfect explanation. You've coined a new phrase. Thank you for the reply!
I even tried to break her of this by bringing her in alone and only letting her drink a normal amount then removing it till it was time to give her another drink. The minute she had unrestricted access to water again she went right back to same old habits. (probably should have tried that when she was little, to late now). When I admitted defeat and returned her to the run 2 days later she of course had to remind everyone else that she was my favorite and should be at the top of the pecking order again.