Hard fecal matter on chicken butts

[Mike Parker]

Lately my chickens, I have 19 in back yard, are getting hard fecal balls on the rear ends. They are stuck on the feathers and need to be trimmed off. The chickens are free in about 1/4 acre. They are locked in dog kennels at night due to predators. We have had a fox who eats our poultry. The run has not been made predator proof so we keep them in dog carriers and small coops at night. Most are in two small coops at night. We let them out into the yard every day. We leave food out for them every day. They eat Purina Layer, corn and grain scratch, mealworms, and some scraps-mostly fruit and veggies but some bread.

Do I need to change something so they don't get rather large fecal clumps?

 

[maryn7]

Lots of folks having this problem this winter (linking to two threads I've been a part of):

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/mysteriously-messy-bum.1437504/#post-23802130
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/poopy-butt.1434875/#post-23735202

I cut out what I couldn't wipe off with a warm shop towel (and dry after!). Everybody seems much happier.

 

[LaFleche]

Are they able to spend the nights on a roost or do they have to sit on the ground in their own droppings?

 

[Sally PB]

Are they able to spend the nights on a roost or do they have to sit on the ground in their own droppings?

I had this problem with one of my pullets. I had a ramp up to the roost, and she would sit on the very top of the ramp. Poop didn't fall clear, so she ended up with a poop mass. It then collected more poop, and got heavy enough to fall off. (The plan was to take her off the roost that night to clean her up; she saved me the trouble.) I removed the ramp, lowered the roost a bit, and that solved the problem. Now the ramp is something to perch on out in the run.

 

[WallyG74]

I get that you’re probably doing the best you can with your current setup but the chickens REALLY need an elevated roost to sleep on. If they are all in dog kennels and all have poop on their butts then the answer is right there. They are sleeping in their own poop and no one likes that. If you can’t get a proper coop with roosts and nests right away then try putting some sticks through the wire in the sides of the kennels. Anything that will get their rear ends up off the floor for the time being.

 

[WallyG74]