No Emergency -- Just a Chick That Poops on Itself

[Urchin]

I am the proud (maybe grossed out is better) owner of Pinto, the Most Disgusting Chicken in the World. It's a silkie, about eight weeks old. It had a slight case of pasty butt after we brought our silkie chicks home and currently has no tail feathers or really any feathers surrounding its vent anymore. It's a healthy, normal chick. Eats, runs around, acts like a chicken should, doesn't have runny poops or hard ones. So, what's the problem, you ask? The darn thing poops on itself. Constantly. I notice the other chickens squat a bit before they poop so that the droppings fall to the ground and not on to fluffy butts. Not Pinto. It just lets the poop run right out.

Today I had to once again bathe it, an activity it despises, to get what looked like three or four bowel movements off its back end. More feathers ended up being pulled out It is starting to get chapped skin back there. I assume from being in constant contact with fecal matter and having to get bathed. I try not to scrub its skin, just let it soak in the water, then gently try to remove the poop. Even though the poop is soft, it's a pain to try to get out of the remaining feathers on its back end and wingtips, which extend back to almost cover its rump. I need to get something on there so that the poor chick doesn't end up with a bloody rump. Who thought I'd be treating a chicken with the avian equivalent of diaper rash? What is safe to put back there near the vent? Can I use something like Neosporin or petroleum jelly? Maybe I should get a tube of Desitin? Ok, that last one is just a joke.

And will this chick EVER learn to poop correctly or am I going to be cleaning up its messes forever? I know nobody can probably answer that, but the poor little thing is never going to like humans if it keeps having to have awful things done to it. It's not going to let itself be won over by treats, either. Humans are just evil as far as it's concerned.

Edited to correct a grammatical error.

 

[KAC hapman19222]

I really wish people would have posted on here, I'm having the same issues and my silkie is a little over 4 months old now, did you ever find an end to the problem? Its a pain to have to constantly bathe a chicken... I feel so bad for her and wish the issue could be fixed...

 

[TwoCrows]

I have a hen that did this for the first 1 1/2 years of her life. She only SLIGHTLY squatted to relieve herself. And of course the poop was always sticking to the butt feathers. I wondered the same thing...why doesn't the bird squat more like the others! I was cleaning her butt a lot. I even took to trimming feathers on her butt so the poop would just fall past and not foul feathers. She is now 3 years old and she squats deeply now. Poops come out normally and never do the feathers get pooped up. I have no idea why birds do this. My girl figured it out on her own.

 

[Urchin]

My Pinto is now around nine months old. She still poops on herself, but it's less now and I have a pretty good idea what the cause is. She's rumpless. We though for the longest time that the constant baths and crusty poops were making it hard for her to keep feathers on her back end. That's not the case. She simply does not have a tail at all to grow feathers on. I'll assume anyone reading this has seen a whole, plucked chicken with that little nub on the rump. She's missing that. There are breeds who come rumpless, like the Araucana and the Rumpy Manx, but Silkies are supposed to have a nice, fluffy tail. She was just born with a mutation. I haven't come across anyone else with a rumpless Silkie, so I don't know how rare that is.

Rumpless chickens who come by it through mutation often are missing their last two vertebrae as well. She didn't seem to have a normal looking vent compared to my other chickens. It was more of a vertical slit than a horizontal one. I ask the posters in the Silkie thread to have a look at a couple of photos of it and confirmed it wasn't a normal looking vent at all. That was back before I knew Pinto's gender. The worry was that passing eggs might be difficult for her if she did turn out to be female, so I wished for a rooster. I found out differently when she went broody in October/November. I didn't even know she was laying, so I'm hoping that means eggs are able to pass through her system with no problems. I do keep an eye on her.

Here are some pictures of her. One is kind of blurry, sorry! They're not the most recent picture because winter has not been kind to the Silkies. We fluctuate between extreme cold and warm enough to make everything muddy, so she's a dirty mess. She is a lot more fluffy now, but is a tiny thing -- about 3/4 the size of my other Silkies. I don't know if being rumpless has anything to with that or not, but she's healthy as far as I can tell. She's very active, eats like a pig and holds her own in the pecking order. The hen in both the pictures with her is about a month older, for size comparison. Pinto's about three months old in the top picture, eight in the second one (plus dirty and starting to molt after coming out of an unbreakable four weeks of broodieness) and I'd guess two or three in the third.











I forgot to add she pretty much always stands upright like that, a lot of times even taller than the roosters. I don't know if that is a contributing factor to poop sticking to her or not.

 

[realsis]

Wow I read your story and saw the pics. She sure is tail less like you said. I raise silkies too and never saw this before. She sure is unique. I'm thinking she stands this way because she has no tail to help balance her. I wish I could offer a solution to her problem but honestly I can't think of one other than keeping her feathers on her backside trimmed very short to help with her issue. . Thank you for sharing her story ! She is very special and one of a kind! She's soo cute too!! Hopefully when she's older she will learn a way to go to that her poo won't stick so badly to her backside.

 

[Urchin]

Thanks! She cracks me up. She's just a little ball of fluff on legs who doesn't think she's a silkie. She almost exclusively hangs out with the big chickens and roosts with them at night. She climbs all over everything, from the roosts, to the nest boxes to the tree stump in the chicken yard. She happily gets dirty, especially right after a bath. She's learned to dodge my bantam cochin rooster, Tails, who has taken a liking to her and she's fast on those little legs. It's funny to see her use her small size to get her fair share of treats. She'll just duck under the big chickens to nab things first.

She's not going to be too happy this spring when it's warm enough to bathe her again. Her feathers are a mess of poop, but it's too cold to do anything with her. She panics something terrible when I bring her in the house to wash and dry her, so I just haven't been doing it. It just stresses her out too much to be separated from her flock for hours. I'm making sure the crusty mess doesn't get too big and trim it off when needed.

 

[KAC hapman19222]

When I first got my two silkies at a week in age, one was full of fuzz and the one with the poo problem had no fluff on the rear end. The feathers did end up coming in but has always been different from my other silkie. One had long tail feathers and my problem child 'princess' had feathers that cover her rear but with a rumpless appearance. Once my other Silkie 'King' ( used to be Queen) started crowing I thought it was just the differences between male and female... But looking at other normal silkies I now know I have a tailless/ possibly rumpless bird.... Which could totally account for her bathroom habits!

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[Urchin]

She does look pretty rumpless. You could feel her rump to check. If she truly is rumpless, it'll be smooth with no nub there. She's very cute!

 

[Phoenix3]

Oh I am so glad you posted!!! My daughter and I just finished washing our silkie rumpless chick (-1 month). She was very worried that something was wrong as the birds rear is pink and featherless after her bath. I knew she was a silkie by the fluffy feet when we got her. I am confident she is rumpless by the lack of anything looking like a rump! I will have to check her vent as she gets older. (I am assuming its a she, my 5 year old will be most unhappy if not!)

I am so glad you posted. I feel much better about her health after reading your post.

 

[seminolewind]

Cut the dirty feathers off. Apply Vaseline or diaper cream liberally. Those dirty feathers will just hold that poop against the skin.