Partly-Pasted-up Grown Chicken

[Poppy Putentake]

Hi all,

I've got a Barred Rock hen 9 months old that's been laying eggs since age 7 months (2 months ago). Lately I've noticed the eggs from this particular hen have dirty streaks on them. I just took a look at her hind end, and there is a mass of partly dried, partly frozen feces, about the size of an egg, stuck to the feathers just below the vent.

If it were midsummer, I'd stick the hen in warm water and give her a bath. However, it is still winter here and I'm sure she would freeze to death if I put her outside wet.

What to do? Pull out the dirty feathers? Bathe her indoors and keep her in the house until she dries off? (I do have a greenhouse that gets warm on sunny afternoons.)
Wait until a warm spell and hope dust bathing takes care of it?

The only problem this is causing right now is the minor one of dirty eggs, but could this lead to health problems for the hen? Is there a way to prevent this happening in the future?

Poppy

 

[cavemanrich]

A very long time ago I had a hen that did get a wad of feces hanging from the south end. I took a pair of scissors and clipped the feathers that were holding the glob to the skin. Her tush looked kind of bald but the issue was solved. Sometimes this happens when the gumdrops are runny rather than the classic semi dry hard projectiles we like to see.
WISHING YOU BEST.

 

[Poppy Putentake]

Here's a late update -- That was March 2017. A few days after I posted, we had a warm, sunny spell with temperatures approaching 70 degrees F in the greenhouse, so I gave the hen a cleaning. I took her in the greenhouse and dipped her hind end in a basin of warm water, alternately with kneading and loosening the lumps. The fifth change of water looked pretty clean so then I dried the hen off with an old towel and put her outside. The bird was pretty docile throughout the process.
I also checked the others. The Buff Orpington had a similar problem but much less severe and she got a "haircut" down there. The others had little or no such problem.
Checking this forum, I noticed that Barred Rock was the most frequently mentioned breed with this problem and Buff Orpington was the second. Maybe there is some subtle difference in these breeds' hind-end feather configuration.
Have not had a recurrence.

 

[micstrachan]

Interesting observation. I just dipped and clipped turd balls off my Barred Rock last week.