Health concerns of my pekin bantam

[Mracous]

Hello,

I came here as a last resort before a trip to the vet. One of our pekin bantams, around 10 months old now is starting to worry me. It could be nothing, but I don't like to leave things to chance so I am here for some advice.

About 6-8 weeks ago she had a dirty bottom, nothing major but a bunch of her feathers under her vent were dirty and matted. For a few days we left it as it only started getting really hot here so assumed she might be drinking a lot and hence the state of her bottom. When it didn't go in a few days even as she was cleaning herself, I checked her and I noticed a slight odour when handling her which prompted me to check the forums and this lead to the initial thoughts of vent gleet.

We treated her for went gleet as follows:

• Epsom salt in comfortably hot water and bath her for 10 minutes
• while in bath I rubbed the feathers so the dirt gets washed out
• while in bath I massaged abdomen and feel for any irregularities
• once out and padded her with a towel for about 5 minutes to get her dry applied Canesten Thrush combi around and just inside the vent
• apple cider vinegar and garlic juice is given to them in the water (5ml/l as per instructions on can) anyways so left it like that

The cream was repeated next day, with bath and cream as above the day after. This have seemed to clear her up, and her bottom was good for another week or so, but then dirty feathers were back again.

She eats and drinks as normal, she seems all fine with herself there are no behavioural changes nor any change in habits or mood. When this all started I reduced their black sunflower seed treats because of the fibre, as well as, vegetables and peelings which they were getting plenty of before and thought it could have been the lettuce and cabbage that they absolutely love! Their feed is just layers pellets normally, with the occasional growers when they wonder to the youngsters food dish.

This didn't really solve the problem we treated her about a week or so later again. I actually run out of sunflower seeds 2-3 week ago now and she developed the same thing again while we were away last week. We have given her the spa-treatment again before we left on the Wednesday, but it came back as of today.
I started to think she got worms in the beginning at one point so we done one round of communal treatment a month ago of Verm-X pellets, but god knows how much of that she ate, so I ordered the liquid version to soak in bread and give it to her that way as this months treatment is this weekend.

She poops but it doesn't always seem like a big-ish lump like the others I see around the enclosure, rather a slightly smaller/thinner stream piling up (if that makes any sense - it doesn't always come out as a single lump but rather like a spaghetti). If I have to guess the amount is the same judging by size as the others its just different geometry if anything.

A few weeks ago (about the time we were treating vent gleet the 2nd time) she also started showing signs of constipation (which I found weird as her feathers were dirty and I thought she had runny bum), at first I was worried she hurt herself, but then realised she was squealing while pooping but only on occasions. I spend quite a bit of time with the chickens so I know it is only odd occasions she does it. For constipation she got the bath again to help with muscle relaxation, and some blackstrap molasses mixed in water fed to her via syringe (about 3 or so drops per dose) - side note, she loves the thing I guess its the sweetness.

I checked her crop, it seems exactly like the others at the time of the day when I check them. I will check in the morning over the weekend when I am staying over but I wont be able to check it until a couple of days from now. She passes food out of the crop as I noticed size differences before so I take that as a good sign from what I read before.

I noticed today that she may have lost a little weight (hard to guess as I've never weighed them but we handle them very often and she just felt little lighter - but could be in my head) so my guesses are leaning toward worms, and wondering if she had that from the start but haven't had enough of the Verm-X to start with.

I want the best for her so do people think I should just call it a vet visit or have people experienced similar events and their backyard chicken skills were able to fix it?

Many thanks!
M

 

[nuthatched]

Hi there, I take it you're in the UK.
Try giving her cultured yoghurt or kefir for a few days, supplments such as acv and garlic can't be given in strong enough dilutions to be much good in this case, as the chickens wont want to drink it. Garlic actually causes sticky, excessively stinky poops so it may be compounding the issue. And as in all supplements, shouldn't be given more than 10 days in a row, and always provide plain water for them to drink. If it is worms, you'll have to do a fecal test unless you see them in the droppings, you'll need (usually) Flubendazole, as the more I read on verm x, the more I'm convinced it has little to no worming capabilities.

 

[Mracous]

Hi there, I take it you're in the UK.
Try giving her cultured yoghurt or kefir for a few days, supplments such as acv and garlic can't be given in strong enough dilutions to be much good in this case, as the chickens wont want to drink it. Garlic actually causes sticky, excessively stinky poops so it may be compounding the issue. And as in all supplements, shouldn't be given more than 10 days in a row, and always provide plain water for them to drink. If it is worms, you'll have to do a fecal test unless you see them in the droppings, you'll need (usually) Flubendazole, as the more I read on verm x, the more I'm convinced it has little to no worming capabilities.

Thank you!

The yoghurt is on the list for the weekend, none of them got stinky from the vinegar garlic juice so I never thought she may smell from that! They have plain water too because of the youngsters but they seem to enjoy the vinegar one more and it is fairly dilute I suppose as bottle said just use it but will give that a stop and see if that helps!

I have thought about the worm tests kit to be sure but still in the process of looking for one that is good.

I had/have the same thought about verm-x but thought I shall give it the benefit of the doubt but I couldn't find anything concrete either way so if the liquid aint helping, I guess I will know for sure!