I have several English Orpington pullets that have huge, beautiful, gloriously fluffy behinds. Too fluffy for their own good, it seems. They are 8 months old and were fine up until it started getting really cold. Now a couple of them have developed a permanently poopy butt and can't seem to be able to take care of it on their own... They are otherwise healthy and act fine, and still get in the proper position for pooping (squatting and parting their feathers to get them out of the way), except that somehow they have a bunch of poop stuck to the feathers under the vent. My theory is that they probably always get some poop on their down, but on warm days it dries up and flakes off when they dust bathe or groom themselves, but when the temperature outside started dropping below freezing, the poop froze to their butts and never fell off... then more of it got stuck and froze, and more, and so on. Is this what's happening here? Is there anything I should do about it? For now it only looks like a cosmetic issue, but can it start affecting their health? It's cold for a butt bath, but I guess I could bring them in and blow dry them after the bath... Is a bath necessary?
Here's what the poopiest one looks like. Somehow she still lays perfectly clean eggs!
This one used to have a poopy butt just like that, but she somehow took care of it herself and now looks (mostly) fine...
So I'm torn between 1) if that other one took care of it herself, then maybe I shouldn't worry about it, the others will do it eventually too, and 2) maybe the fact that the others haven't all this time, when she did, actually means that they just can't do it and will need help...
What should I do?
Here's what the poopiest one looks like. Somehow she still lays perfectly clean eggs!
This one used to have a poopy butt just like that, but she somehow took care of it herself and now looks (mostly) fine...
So I'm torn between 1) if that other one took care of it herself, then maybe I shouldn't worry about it, the others will do it eventually too, and 2) maybe the fact that the others haven't all this time, when she did, actually means that they just can't do it and will need help...
What should I do?