Help im a horrible chicken mommy...(gross pictures of chicken butts)

[mrsruvi]

About a week ago my husband noticed what looked like glass in the chickens poop. They free range in the back yard and we didnt notice any random glass in the yard and they didnt have any blood so we figured it was just something weird and a one time thing then moved on. then today we got only one egg out of all six chickens. I went to check on them tonight and found another egg in the coop so i went to pick it up and it was a jelly egg... then i looked over and saw my leghorn had a really really messy butt. upon examination she had some sort of mucous dangling from her vent. I took her inside, pulled off he mucous (see below) and washed her booty.

There is no blood on her booty, and she was the one that laid a normal egg today. The jelly egg came from a chicken that has no booty problems at all.

We got concerned and remembered the glass and so we went out with flashlights and found behind our shed there is a broken window. So basically my chickens are eating glass and laying jelly eggs! Are these all related? are they going to die? will a few days confinement in the coop eating only good healthy feed flush it all out of them? Or are these just isolated incidents that happened to occur at similar times?

They have access to oyster shell and the poop looks normal except for the occasional glass bit.

I'm sorry i know i sound like a horrible chicken parent... how can i fix it?

 

[CMV]

Oh, dear. Well, chickens eat some of the craziest things. Unfortunately, they will pass the glass, or they won't. I would be watching them closely, especially the one that pooped out that mess. Chickens can survive eating glass- I processed a bird a few years back that had a large chunk of glass in its crop. The glass had been smoothed out to almost sea glass, and the bird showed no signs of problems, so I have no idea how long the glass was hanging around inside her. It was too big to pass into the gizzard, but given enough time I am sure it would have been passed. The only thing you can do is make sure they have access to grit- not oyster shell because that is too soft, but real granite grit to try to smooth out any sharp edges on the ingested glass. I don't think I would recommend a laxative because if the glass is too sharp it will tear the birds up inside. I think it is probably better to let nature take its course.

The laying issues may or may not be related. I am inclined to think they are unrelated, but who knows?

I would clean the glass up, and then closely monitor the chickens. If any seem to be ailing then you are going to need to decide what to do. Since you don't know who ate the glass and who didn't, the decision to do something as drastic as euthanization should be only considered if a bird is obviously ill. A vet could be of some assistance if you want to go that route. They can x-ray any sick birds and possibly see if there are foreign bodies inside. They can also run a fecal exam to see if your birds have worms. Chickens will sometimes eat foreign objects in response to a heavy worm load. A heavy worm load will also give some nasty poops.

I hope your birds are OK. Good luck.

 

[seminolewind]

you can cut all the nasty feathers off, that's what I do. That blob kinda looks more like egg yolk. Does anyone else think so?

 

[charsbird]

The blob looks kinda like the remains of the outer membrane of a jelly egg. Seems unrelated to glass eating to me.

 

[Emily1220]

I agree......looks like jelly egg to me hanging out there. Unrelated to glass.

 

[mrsruvi]

The white chicken in the photos didn't lay an egg today and spent the whole day on the nest just sitting and looking uncomfy. Could the booty issues be caused by being egg bound?

 

[mannedwolfy]

I dont think the jelly eggs are related. Are they new layers? if so, that happens alot. If not, it still happens, i think it was a coincidence.