Hen with vent problem and limp! *Pictures Please help!

[PsychoChicken]

Oh gosh. I just looked up vent gleet and it does sound like that... I think her foot might be a separate issue. I am contacting vets today and I am going to give her some yogurt.

 

[PunkyRooster]

bump

 

[Lacy Blues]

boy... you were right! That IS GROSS! I haven't seen anything like that. Usually, vent gleet smells really bad, you can smell them 10 feet away! I'd definitely say she has an infection of some sort. The yogurt should help her digestion and eventually get to her lower intestine and that will get her healing up from that end.

Let us know what your vet says ok? I'd really like to know on this one... in case I see it here... God forbid!

To: Punky Rooster... what do you mean by "bump" ?

 

[klmclain1]

A bump is when someone replies on your thread simply to "bump" you back to the top of the forum listings so hopefully someone will see your problem an help! We're not supposed to do it ... but sometimes the moderators look the other way. (at least I think they do!)

 

[PsychoChicken]

Her vent looks even worse today. I soaked her in epsom salt for 30 mins, gave her yogurt, put some raw apple cider vinegar in her water, and smeared some yeast infection cream on her vent. I could not get any inside because her vent is closed up. She is still squirting out small amounts of poo... this is the worst thing ever. I have only had chickens for 6 months!

I called my vet to find out if they even know anything about chickens and the vet tech told me to email them about it but then never got back to me. It's awful because I have to be at work all day and I barely have time to help her. I just spent 2 hours soaking, blow drying a fretting over this.

If I can get her to recover I wonder if she will even be able to develop normally and lay eggs or if shes damaged permanently...

I will keep you all updated.

 

[PunkyRooster]

Ooh I did not know were weren't supposed to bump. I was trying to help- oops! I hope someone can help your hen!

 

[TeamChaos]

Is that black ridge around her vent scar tissue? It looks rough and hard like scar tissue. Hmmmmmm...

 

[PsychoChicken]

It is rough and hard. Not sure if its scar tissue. It is really strange. Almost like a nail.

 

[PsychoChicken]

I just had a vet tell me he thinks it's Merek's disease. He didn't actually see my chicken just got the description via email with pictures. I read about Merek's but they symptoms didn't match as well as vent gleet... I REALLY hope it is not Mereks. I'll let everyone know what I find out tomorrow.

 

[Lacy Blues]

They can die from Mareks. If it's only her foot though, I wouldn't say Mareks but I'm not a professional. Does she fall over on her side?

There is a cure for Mareks. If that's what she has, get some... hang on here. I'm having trouble remembering the name. You can get it at a health food store, it's made from St. Johns Wort, and they make it into little tiny pills. Talk to the people at the health food store.

If you find some of it, DO NOT touch the pill with your hands. First, put some water into a teaspoon. The lid of the pill container turns to dispense a pill when needed. Make sure the pill drops into the water and then let it dissolve. I think this takes about an hour. Then you take an eyedropper and suck up the fluid in your teaspoon. You'll need help with this so have an extra pair of hands available... You need to drip 5 drops of this liquid into the crevice on the roof of your bird's mouth, make sure it goes into the crack. A week of this is all she should need.

I haven't had Mareks in my flock for quite some time but I used this on one male that I had that had recurring leg problems and it really did the job for him. I usually gave him 8-10 drops but he was a big bird and I wasn't positive I got them all in the crevice.

Let us know how it all works out.

Just a tip for those who want to know... regarding Mareks.

Turkeys get a form of Mareks that chickens can catch. The turkey form is much milder than the chicken form. If you have turkeys available to run with your chickens, you'll probably never have the fatal chicken Mareks. A chicken catches it and it is so mild that you can't even tell they got it but it makes them immune to the chicken form. If you're not comfortable with running turkeys with your chickens (some people are) you can probably get turkey droppings from someone else who has them. Just spread it around in your chicken yard. I know the bio-security people are probably pulling their hair out right now but it works and as long as the turkeys you get this from are healthy, there shouldn't be any issues. I did it and my birds were all fine and guess what else... I haven't had Mareks in my flock for 5 years. I've been raising my birds for 6 years and the first year I lost over half of my babies to Mareks so I'm convinced.