Possibly vent gleet?

[huntersmoon]

I think one of my hens has vent gleet - from reading the posts and searching the archives. I uploaded a pic to see if that can be confirmed - had already trimmed the feathers away from under the vent when taking the pics.


I also realized I had not wormed them, in moire than a year. So I'm not sure if it's worms or gleet. I did a dose of Wazine in the water today according to dosage recommendations I did here. I did not see them drinking the water but it was their only source - should I just repeat the one day dose in a month and pay better attention or do it again tomorrow?

And is it okay to do the vent gleet treatment at the same time as having wormed? I'm planning on doing the treatment recommended here - the epsom salt and yogurt treatment. I washed the area with epsom salt water Friday when I noticed it, and have been giving yogurt daily ever since.

Thanks
Shannon

 

[Eggcessive]

Vent gleet symptoms are bare areas around the vent with red skin and white or yellow patches, and foul-smelling diarrhea from an over growth of fungus, much like a yeast infection. I would clean off the vent with soap and water to look for this. It may be just some soiling around the vent from loose droppings getting trapped in the excess feathers. If you feel that it is vent gleet, then antifungal medicines such as Nystatin can be prescribed by a vet. Wazine will only treat round worm, so I would recommend a broad spectrum wormer such as Valbazen which can be used once, then repeated in 10 days to treat all know chicken worms.

 

[huntersmoon]

Thanks for the advice. She is big and fluffy and often has soiled feathers... this time it looked like pus was mixed among the poop. I don't see bare areas or redness around the vent and will clean it off thoroughly to double check. She is eating and foraging, comb is red, she lags a bit behind the others though when leaving the coop and doesn't run flapping her wings like they do. But she is getting up int the roost at night and the others are not shunning her.

Is there something besides worms and vent gleet I should consider based on the apparent puss? At first I thought it was an egg that maybe ruptured as she laid it but as I investigated it seemed more like just white substance. Maybe I was seeing just the white part of the excrement but want to be sure I'm not missing something.

Thanks
Shannon

 

[huntersmoon]

She was perkier this morning and ran a bit with the other chickens when let out of the coop, although she still lingered a bit behind them.

Besides doing the additional general worming and the continued epsom salt washes, is there something else I need to look for?

Thanks
Shannon

 

[casportpony]

I found this link very helpful:
http://birdhealth.com.au/flockbirds/poultry/diseases/vent_gleet.html

-Kathy

Edited to add:
I have one right now that has gleet and a stuck egg. Will post my treatment plan once I figure it out.

 

[Eggcessive]

Droppings can certainly change from time to time. There is regular droppings, then cecal droppings every 9th or 10th time they go. Cecal droppings are shiny, sticky, and smelly. Some droppings may contain the white urates, which can sometimes be pinkish at night. There could be mucus in the poo, but also there could be material that looks like cooked eggs if the hen is an internal layer. Yogurt and dairy products are not well digested, so a commercial probiotic such as Probios or Gro2Max may be best to use once or twice week. Pictures of droppings may help.

 

[rancher hicks]

Interestingly I was just writing about it on another thread.

Chickens have Flora in their gut. Flora who I don't know nor why she is in their gut, but.............. I used to work with a woman named Flo but that's probably not the same thing...................

Anyhow, sometimes this Flora gets out of whack. My ex wife was out of whack, maybe it was her Flora.

Anyhow, as I'm seeing right now in my Marans, chickens get "gleet". Not "Glee" like the tv show, but G-L-E-E-T. It would be cool if they did get Glee cuz then they'd all break into song.....................

It seems that AVC in the water helps reset their Flora. Yogurt and Probiotics do too.

Much like what Jamie Lee Curtis has and why she eats Activia. To reset her digestive tract. I don't know if she gets white gunk on her butt, like chickens do or not. She never mentions suffering from Gleet.

So if you or your chickens get white gunk on the butt you might want to either put ACV in your drinking water or eat Activa.

Hope this explains it all.

Wonder if ACV or Activia would have helped my ex wife........nah, she was just plain nuts!

 

[casportpony]

Remember that not all vent gleet if from yeast.

-Kathy

Edited to add:
My hen looks exactly like the hen pictured in this thread (discharge color wise).

 

[dawg53]

Here's a link regarding vent gleet and treatments:
http://ultimatefowl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vent_Gleet
Here are pics of vent gleet:

 

[rancher hicks]

I had also mentioned instead of bringing them in and washing since it's cold to dry wash them with DE.

My Maran hens have white butts and research suggests it's gleet caused by an upset in Flora in the gut. I have no idea what upset Flora or even that she was in their gut.

So research also suggests resetting things with some ACV and/or probiotics and/or Yogurt. Which I intend to do. This is right?

Also it mentioned washing their butts but that is not going to happen in this freezing cold weather. However I do have a hint for such things in the cold weather and that is a "dry shampoo".

I will take some DE to the coop and one by one "wash" their butts good. Cleaning and drying the crud from their feathers.

I'm not really surprised by the gleet thing since I've fed them some scratch with bread crumbs and some popped corn and scratch. Too it's been wet off and on. This might explain the gleet?

I also intend to dump lots of DE in the nest boxes so they can "clean" themselves with each laying.

Anyone remember the "Minipoo" ads? "When you can't shampoo, Minipoo".

Of course now we have hair dryers.

Remember chickens have "oil" on their feathers just like ducks though perhaps not as much. If you do wash them it will take some time to restore that oil. They have an oil gland and use this gland to restore the oil to their feathers.