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

[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?

 

[Mitchellwhitey]

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?

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 )

 

[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!

 

[ChickenHour]

It looks like an in-bound egg. Have you tried to clean out her vent? She might need to be separated from the other chickens to make sure they don’t need peck her.

 

[Mitchellwhitey]

Update: 3 days later and the chicken still looks the same. I cleaned out her vent with warm towel and the chicken looks the same. She seems fine other than that. The reddish lump still looks like the same and she has more white fluids coming out. The other chickens are pecking at her, and I noticed, they ALL peck at eachothers vents which definitely caused this.

 

[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]

It looks like you have a real nice setup there. Looks warm, too. Your signature doesn’t say where you are, and that info (just your general location—nothing specific—state, Provence, country... that kind of thing) could make a difference.

If it’s warm where you are, a daily bum bath in warm (not hot) water with Epsom salts might help. I’ve noticed there are a lot of used wire dog crates available on Craig’s List around here very reasonably. Maybe you could find one cheap or even free where you are, or borrow one from a friend/neighbor. Something like that could work for a “hospital” for her to protect her from the others’ pecking until she heals up. If there’s room you can set the crate inside one of the coops or some other sheltered location at night. You could also make a temporary pen for her from left-over wire fencing/chicken wire, etc. It sounds like she does need some protection from her flock mates.

Did you know you can give your chickens meat scraps, feed them back their eggs (scrambled not raw), and pretty much feed them anything that’s good for you to eat? Healthy stuff, I mean—not junk food. Since you’re limited to what your mom is able/willing to provide, that could be a good way to increase the protein in their diets.

Hoping your girl gets better.

 

[MROO]

Toys are a good idea! Cabbage is an awesome boredom buster. Last summer, we cut a long watermelon in half, lengthwise and set it in the run. They turned it into a seesaw! Another good toy is a Dollar Store wiffle ball (it's a cheap, plastic baseball with holes in it.) When it's cold (like now) we fill it with a mixture of fats drained from our own dinner, leftover fruits, veggies and scratch. In the warmer months, we use peanut butter, scratch and frozen produce. If you give them a ball, be sure to allow time to watch them explore & play with it ... it can be HIGHLY entertaining!