Please help! Don’t know what’s wrong with her.

[Eggcessive]

Have the other hens been picking on her or vent pecking? She has some feather loss, and it looks like hardened crust under the vent. It would be good if you could bring her inside and soak her for 20 minutes in either warm water with Epsom salts or some Dawn or Betadine. Wash off the poop and gunk, when you get ther dry, take a new picture. While she is in there, use a glove it you have one, and insert one finger inside the vent an inch for a stuck egg, egg material, membrane, etc. Make sure that she is dried with a hair dryer and completely dry. Apply some plain Neosporin ointment to her vent area. Can you see what is going on under her belly in the first picture?

 

[Boonie Stomper]

If you can clean her up a bit with warm water perhaps more will be discoverable such as whether the source of goo is the vent or an abcess. Then any new discharge can be looked at aside from poo on her rear, as to any sign of blood or yolk or uunusual odor such as yeast.

 

[Mitchellwhitey]

Have the other hens been picking on her or vent pecking? She has some feather loss, and it looks like hardened crust under the vent. It would be good if you could bring her inside and soak her for 20 minutes in either warm water with Epsom salts or some Dawn or Betadine. Wash off the poop and gunk, when you get ther dry, take a new picture. While she is in there, use a glove it you have one, and insert one finger inside the vent an inch for a stuck egg, egg material, membrane, etc. Make sure that she is dried with a hair dryer and completely dry. Apply some plain Neosporin ointment to her vent area. Can you see what is going on under her belly in the first picture?

The feathers have been gone for a couple weeks now. The girls tend to pick at each others feathers a lot. But unfortunately my mother will not have the chicken inside the house as she thinks it will peck at her and has diseases. I don’t know how long this has been going on with the hen, but I noticed it yesterday and it was still there today. I touched and tried to see what the red thing was earlier and it felt like a lump, or like a sack, and she felt pain when I touched it a little.

 

[Eggcessive]

She really needs to come inside to be bathed and dried thoroughly before putting her back out in the coop. If you could just bathe her vent area, that would be good. Chickens with this kind of problem usually require a few days of soaks to get the skin to heal. But this cannot be done if they are out in the cold. If possible, bring her in, treat her, dry her, then take her back to the coop.

She could have suffered a partial prolapse, or part of he cloaca could have been exposed as she was laying an egg, which in turn, caused the others to peck at the red. Or she might have vent gleet, a fungal infection of her digestive tract. The runny droppings could also be from a reproductive disorder or infection, and the vent pecking can damage the vent where droppings slowly constantly drip out. That drainage can cause burning of the skin, and in warm weather, attract maggots.

Vent pecking can easily lead to cannibalism in chickens. Some reasons are overcrowding, not getting outside to roam around, boredom, a lack of protein and a balanced chicken feed in the diet, and some breeds can be more aggressive than others.

What do you feed? How much room is there for the chickens?

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

She REALLY needs a warm soak with Epsom salt and a good bum cleaning. If you could take photos of her bottom after it is cleaned up, it would really help.
So sorry about your hen! Bear hugs!

 

[MROO]

Hello,
I do not provide the food, my mother does. The feed is called Purina Layena Crumbles. There is room for over 30 chickens in my chicken run. Now we have another chicken coop to the right of the one inside. So a total of 3 chicken coops, and the chicken run built from my family and I. Also, my mother is totally against bringing the chicken inside because she thinks it will attack her and/or make her sick. And as you were saying, I personally think the hen has a partial prolapse because I was just reading an article and it seems to be exactly what it is. Is there any other methods besides bringing the hen inside my house and cleaning her? (as terrible as it sounds )
View attachment 1687113

Send Mom out to lunch with a friend or neighbor - your treat! - long enough to clean and blow dry her (your hen, not your Mom!) Or maybe you have a friend or neighbor that would let you come play in their garage or back room for a bit. All you need is an hour or so for a BYO bucket and blowdryer party. And don't forget the Epsom Salts!

 

[Eggcessive]

You may want to consider increasing the protein in their feed to 20 % by switching to Flock Raiser or an all flock feed. I would put a little plain yogurt in their feed in a large pan for probiotics for a week or so. You can alternate with some cottage cheese or even buttermilk. They may need to get out of their coop and run, or have more room inside their coop, and you can place a cabbage inside for them to peck at. Some tree stumps or other things to climb on can decrease their boredom and hopefully stop the pecking. Nustock cream, Bag Balm, Vicks, or Pine Tar can be good to apply to prevent pecking, since those taste bad and are sticky. Pecking vents can lead to vent damage, cannibalism and death. Here is some reading:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vent_pecking

 

[CindyinSD]

Bummer... I was hoping maybe warmer. It’s miserably cold here, too. Warmer than last night. Tonight it’s only (supposedly) going down to -13. I guess we’ll see.

If you have a garage or storage area you could bring her into, you might talk your mom into that. If it’s somewhere she doesn’t have to look at or interact with the hen, she might be persuaded, especially if there’s a cage/kennel/etc. Just somewhere you could keep an eye on her and apply whatever medications folks have suggested that you can get hold of. People have these fears; you can seldom argue them out of them, even if you’re the one who’s afraid and trying to convince *yourself* not to be.

You might try grinding up some oatmeal and soaking it in a bit of warm water for several minutes until it gets gluey, then pack her wound with it. You probably have that, and I’ve read it can help to draw the “poison” (in this case probably dead white blood cells) out. It won’t hurt her, at any rate, and it might help reduce the inflammation.

 

[Eggcessive]

So sorry for your loss. Keep an eye on the agressive hens and try to do some of things recommended to prevent pecking. Some people use pinless peepers to prevent pecking. Sometimes it is better to get rid of the agressors than to have to deal with new chickens being injured. Here is another article about vent pecking with causes:
https://extension.psu.edu/poultry-cannibalism-prevention-and-treatment

 

[CindyinSD]

So sorry to hear that, Mitchell.