Help what's wrong with my old hens bottom.

[Gomerpenny]

This is a gross picture but I'm not sure what's wrong with her.
What's wrong and what can I do to help. I have 2 old hens with very red swollen hot and hard bottoms. They look in pain. I clean them off but it does this again. If you push on her some poop comes out. And looks like her insides want to come out.

Help.......

 

[gander007]

Alright

You need to wash her bottom and add some Probiotic to her drinking water to clear this up and a hard boiled egg would also help clean out her system but the probiotic is a must and you can get it at your feed store ......

 

[happyhens1972]

Firstly, have you done a comparison to your other hens? It is actually normal for a hen's rear end to be hot and red. The normal range of body temperature in a hen can rise to what would be classed as dangerous or even fatal in a human.....so your hen's bottom will always feel 'feverish'.

The runny poop however, may be caused by excessive heat in the weather, stress, a change in diet or illness.

Gander007 has already offered the best advice with the boiled (mine prefer scrambled!) egg and probiotic. If you can't get probiotic from the feed store, then natural yoghurt is a good substitute and can be mixed in with the scrambled egg....most chickens love the sloppy mess!! A couple of pinches of garlic granules added to the recipe will be beneficial.

Some ACV in their water will also help to clear things up.

If the runny poop has not improved or cleared up in two or three days, or you see other symptoms, you may need to consider other action but for now, give this a try.

Also, be very aware of fly strike. It's a real threat in warm weather and once it has established, it is almost impossible to treat and is a nasty way to die. If you have any ivermectin spray on or similar, it's worth applying that around (but not on) their bottoms.

 

[TwoCrows]

Welcome to BYC!

So sorry about your hen. First thing you need to do is separate her from the other as it looks like the other hen maybe picking at her butt and she could kill her and visa versa. This may be vent gleet, a yeast infection of the intestinal tract. So what you need to do is get their butts washed and cleaned off. Get some vaginal cream and apply it daily to the red butts all over. Then, as Gander has mention, get some probiotics into both of these birds thru the water. Change it and make new daily. Keep the butts clean every day, apply the vaginal cream and use probiotics. After they are healed, it never hurts to use probiotics a couple times a week for good intestinal health.

You can also post this in our emergency section for more help....

https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/10/emergencies-diseases-injuries-and-cures

Good luck with your hens. I hope you can get them back to good health soon.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Hello and Welcome To BYC! You've gotten some good suggestions above on things to try. Do the hens still lay eggs? If they haven't been wormed you may also want to do that just incase. If you have Blu-Kote or something similar you may want to spray that on the bald skin as some protection.

 

[Gomerpenny]

Thank you for all the great advice. I'm not sure if they still lay eggs, I have 20 hens and not sure which ones still lay. I cleaned their bottoms again and put "girl cream" on them. I got some plain yogurt and put some diatomaceous earth mixed in. I will mix up some acv and garlic water tomorrow.

Thanks again,
I'm glad I joined this group.

Here is a picture of her all cleaned up.

 

[drumstick diva]

She looks much better already - poor girl, I bet the " girl cream," really felt good for her. Please be very careful that flies do not lay eggs on her bottom. The maggots can be horrible and very difficult to get rid of.