Please help me figure out what this is so I can save Ruby!
Breed/age/weight: Easter egger. 6 months. She actually feels heavier than some of the other pullets.
Behavior: Normal. Laying perfect eggs, eating, drinking, social, normal poo. Only noticing that she is walking strange. Like kind of squatty.
Exhibiting symptoms: For two days. None of her other 5 sisters are exhibiting any symptoms.
Injury or sign of trauma: Swollen red butt under vent. Feels soft and squishy and doesn't seem to bother her when I touch it but it feels hot like an infection. There is no broken skin, blood, or missing feathers. Vent looks normal, not red or irritated looking. My EEs never peck at one another.
Incident: Nothing that I know of has happened to her. No new visitors and my dog wouldn't dare touch any of them. There have been a few spider webs in the tractor?
Diet: They are on layer crumble with 16% protein and are given a tablespoon of ACV in their gallon waters. Ruby has been eating and drinking normally.
Poop: Looks normal, no blood or strange colors. She had pasty butt yesterday because her poor butt is so swollen, it's catching some of the poo. I soaked her in warm water yesterday and got it all off. No pasty butt today but it still looks swollen.
Treatment: None so far. Only the warm bath to get the poo off. Since she is acting normally I feel bad isolating her from the flock. Plus, I only have Sulmet as an antibiotic and I was told by my chicken breeder that I should use something stronger. I'm contemplating ordering a different antibiotic since it doesn't seem immediately life threatening. But then again, I'm not even sure it is an infection. I do not plan on taking her to the vet because it's such a rip off. Hoping to cure her at home.
No picture: My cell phone battery was too low to take a pic while I had her in the bath.
Bedding/housing: They have an A frame chicken tractor. Nest boxes filled with wood shavings, sprinkled with DE every time I refresh the shavings. Ruby sleeps on TOP of the tractor at night with 2 of her sisters. The other 3 sleep inside on the roosts. They are never locked in the tractor, they free range all day.
I have found MANY other threads with people describing what sounds like the exact same problem I am having but no one in any of the threads has figured out the definite cause or cure. Some people even say that their chickens have had "swollen butts" for over a year and they were still acting normally. I really don't want to lose her. She's my only EE that lays a pink egg. It's so cute.
Also... can you tell if a chicken is in pain? Do they show it?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope we can finally get to the bottoms of this.
-Cara
Breed/age/weight: Easter egger. 6 months. She actually feels heavier than some of the other pullets.
Behavior: Normal. Laying perfect eggs, eating, drinking, social, normal poo. Only noticing that she is walking strange. Like kind of squatty.
Exhibiting symptoms: For two days. None of her other 5 sisters are exhibiting any symptoms.
Injury or sign of trauma: Swollen red butt under vent. Feels soft and squishy and doesn't seem to bother her when I touch it but it feels hot like an infection. There is no broken skin, blood, or missing feathers. Vent looks normal, not red or irritated looking. My EEs never peck at one another.
Incident: Nothing that I know of has happened to her. No new visitors and my dog wouldn't dare touch any of them. There have been a few spider webs in the tractor?
Diet: They are on layer crumble with 16% protein and are given a tablespoon of ACV in their gallon waters. Ruby has been eating and drinking normally.
Poop: Looks normal, no blood or strange colors. She had pasty butt yesterday because her poor butt is so swollen, it's catching some of the poo. I soaked her in warm water yesterday and got it all off. No pasty butt today but it still looks swollen.
Treatment: None so far. Only the warm bath to get the poo off. Since she is acting normally I feel bad isolating her from the flock. Plus, I only have Sulmet as an antibiotic and I was told by my chicken breeder that I should use something stronger. I'm contemplating ordering a different antibiotic since it doesn't seem immediately life threatening. But then again, I'm not even sure it is an infection. I do not plan on taking her to the vet because it's such a rip off. Hoping to cure her at home.
No picture: My cell phone battery was too low to take a pic while I had her in the bath.
Bedding/housing: They have an A frame chicken tractor. Nest boxes filled with wood shavings, sprinkled with DE every time I refresh the shavings. Ruby sleeps on TOP of the tractor at night with 2 of her sisters. The other 3 sleep inside on the roosts. They are never locked in the tractor, they free range all day.
I have found MANY other threads with people describing what sounds like the exact same problem I am having but no one in any of the threads has figured out the definite cause or cure. Some people even say that their chickens have had "swollen butts" for over a year and they were still acting normally. I really don't want to lose her. She's my only EE that lays a pink egg. It's so cute.
Also... can you tell if a chicken is in pain? Do they show it?
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope we can finally get to the bottoms of this.
-Cara
