Perpetual Dirty Butt

[jimboms]

I have two ~9 month old White Bresse hens I keep in a chicken tractor and let range during the day. One I have never had a problem with, and one has had a perpetually soiled vent. She has never seemed sick; she runs around, flies up to roost, hangs with the other hen, etc. although I don't think she laid very often. Since the other one was fine I didn't bother trying to address it too much other than trying Corid for a little while.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks.

 

[nuthatched]

Have you ever wormed? What's the diet? This is a problem that needs to be solved to prevent fly strike

 

[Ecarroll]

I have a similar issue but less extreme, I’ll get a picture in the morning. Following for information.

 

[mamasnowwolf]

I have the same issue. We dewormed earlier this year, that didn't help. Diet right now is purina 16% layer feed. We mix it up between this and some homemade food We get it specially mixed. Nothing we do seems to help. After we switched to the homemade food, we bathed her, but was dirty in 2 days.

 

[nuthatched]

I have the same issue. We dewormed earlier this year, that didn't help. Diet right now is purina 16% layer feed. We mix it up between this and some homemade food We get it specially mixed. Nothing we do seems to help. After we switched to the homemade food, we bathed her, but was dirty in 2 days.

What's in the homemade feed?

 

[ChurchGirl]

I have had some chickens like this, they act fine, but their vent and butt is very dirty. I tried deworming, getting them expensive food, and cleaning them but it is always dirty again. This might just be because of old age, because I noticed that it only happened to our old chickens. For you, I would just make sure her vent doesn't get clogged, but otherwise I think your chicken should be fine. If you want, but I don't know if this would help, give her more solid food, but again, I'm not sure that this would do anything at all.

 

[LaFleche]

After deworming and cleaning the dirt off with a nice soak in warm water, a trimming of overly abundant butt fluff can help to prevent the droppings to stick.

Older hens become gradually less flexible, so bending backwards to clean themselves can become impossible and they will need their human to help them with the task.

 

[jimboms]

I haven't dewormed. There seems to be a lot of different opinions on how to do it. What do people recommend? This is a young hen (less than a year old).

 

[LaFleche]

I haven't dewormed. There seems to be a lot of different opinions on how to do it. What do people recommend? This is a young hen (less than a year old).

Even young birds can have the bad luck to ingest an insect or worm that is a parasite carrier.

Depending on where in the world you live, different will be available. Here is some information
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/internal-parasites-parasitic-worms-in-chickens.66969/

 

[Airwaves35]

I have two ~9 month old White Bresse hens I keep in a chicken tractor and let range during the day. One I have never had a problem with, and one has had a perpetually soiled vent. She has never seemed sick; she runs around, flies up to roost, hangs with the other hen, etc. although I don't think she laid very often. Since the other one was fine I didn't bother trying to address it too much other than trying Corid for a little while.

Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks.

Possibly Coccidiosis. I had to put a chicken down because of it. Check it out online. Best of luck !