I only started owning chickens in spring of last year and this is my first time having to deal with gleek. My biggest worry is that I'm not sure I treated it correctly, I did my best to research but it feels like there's a lot of contradicting information.
I'm going to try to be very quick in the background before stating how I tried to treat since I think how I came into these chickens is kind of important since it was very stressful for them. My Dad ordered a bunch of birds online because he had heard about Breese as a dual purpose bird and really wanted them. They were supposed to be pullets but when they showed up there were eggs in the box with them. We were prepared for young birds so we put them into a brooder box while we finished building the coop. While we were watching over them it because very clear that at least most of them were about 3 years old.
We worked extra hard to get them into the coop faster and got them a run. Over the following week it became clear that 3 of the hens were being heavily bullied by the other birds, including the rooster. Best we can figure they are younger than the other birds and might have been taken from a different batch of birds all together. So we constructed mini-coop, and 3 young girls found themselves in their own apartment.
The 3 hens are named Carolyn, Caroline and Aunt Carol. (All the Breese are named Carol in some form except the rooster we named Gaston) The naming makes sense with their personalities. The hen that got bullied the worst was Carolyn, she was bullied to such a point she wouldn't even leave the coop until very late when the rest of the flock tried to pile in. That when she would go for food and water before going back in for the night. In mini-coop all 3 have been thriving and it's fantastic to see.
Carolyn has been having some issues with gleet for a bit now but I didn't really realize because they were so skittish she wouldn't let me near her. I was watching her a little over a week ago and decided to get a better look over her because her butt looked wet into the base of her tail feathers. I picked her up and the smell hit me pretty quickly and investigating showed that yeah, it was for sure an over growth of yeast.
A bit of research later and we brought her inside for a spa day complete with an Epsom salt soak and some Vagistat cream to start treating the infection. It's a 2% cream and I treated her with a pea sized amount, once a day for a full week.
The smell was nearly gone and she looked (And still looks) like she feels a lot better. Once the week was up I stopped treating and hoped for the best. I checked on her today and while she's not as bad as before, the smell is definitely back and her butt looks wet again.
I don't have a ton of money to take her to a vet and with her getting better while treating, I wonder if I just did it wrong? Did she just need a few more days?
Any help would be appreciated and thank you for reading through the whole post.
I'm going to try to be very quick in the background before stating how I tried to treat since I think how I came into these chickens is kind of important since it was very stressful for them. My Dad ordered a bunch of birds online because he had heard about Breese as a dual purpose bird and really wanted them. They were supposed to be pullets but when they showed up there were eggs in the box with them. We were prepared for young birds so we put them into a brooder box while we finished building the coop. While we were watching over them it because very clear that at least most of them were about 3 years old.
We worked extra hard to get them into the coop faster and got them a run. Over the following week it became clear that 3 of the hens were being heavily bullied by the other birds, including the rooster. Best we can figure they are younger than the other birds and might have been taken from a different batch of birds all together. So we constructed mini-coop, and 3 young girls found themselves in their own apartment.
The 3 hens are named Carolyn, Caroline and Aunt Carol. (All the Breese are named Carol in some form except the rooster we named Gaston) The naming makes sense with their personalities. The hen that got bullied the worst was Carolyn, she was bullied to such a point she wouldn't even leave the coop until very late when the rest of the flock tried to pile in. That when she would go for food and water before going back in for the night. In mini-coop all 3 have been thriving and it's fantastic to see.
Carolyn has been having some issues with gleet for a bit now but I didn't really realize because they were so skittish she wouldn't let me near her. I was watching her a little over a week ago and decided to get a better look over her because her butt looked wet into the base of her tail feathers. I picked her up and the smell hit me pretty quickly and investigating showed that yeah, it was for sure an over growth of yeast.
A bit of research later and we brought her inside for a spa day complete with an Epsom salt soak and some Vagistat cream to start treating the infection. It's a 2% cream and I treated her with a pea sized amount, once a day for a full week.
The smell was nearly gone and she looked (And still looks) like she feels a lot better. Once the week was up I stopped treating and hoped for the best. I checked on her today and while she's not as bad as before, the smell is definitely back and her butt looks wet again.
I don't have a ton of money to take her to a vet and with her getting better while treating, I wonder if I just did it wrong? Did she just need a few more days?
Any help would be appreciated and thank you for reading through the whole post.
