Vent gleet question

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I have a few hens with vent gleet.
Would it be harmful to my healthy hens to give them all molasses water? I don't have an easy place to isolate the ones with gleet.
I've got plenty of yogurt, fermented high protein mash and acv to give them all.
 
I have a few hens with vent gleet.
Would it be harmful to my healthy hens to give them all molasses water? I don't have an easy place to isolate the ones with gleet.
I've got plenty of yogurt, fermented high protein mash and acv to give them all.

I'm assuming you are going to use the treatment detailed on fresh eggs daily?http://www.fresheggsdaily.com/2013/09/vent-gleet-symptoms-causes-and-natural.html

Molasses acts as a laxative - it probably won't hurt to let the healty hens have it, but you may end up with extra bums to wash:)

fwiw - if your affected ladies have a red/raw bum from the gleet, then you may want to apply an anti-fungal cream topically to the vent and surrounding tissue.
 
I can offer what natural methods I use (successfully) for treating humans with fungal infections, as I have never had a chicken incur a fungal infection yet. Very often (thought not always) the information is quite parallel.

Considering vent gleet is a fungal infection (which is extremely different from either bacterial or viral infections), the use of molasses is alarming to me. Fungal issues like these come about as a result of the balance of beneficial and non-beneficial organisms of the digestive tract falling out of its healthy ratio. I have no idea what you've been feeding them prior to gleet cropping up, but proper diet very important to preventing this from reoccurring in the future, so please tell us.

Fungus' chosen food is sugars. Anything containing simple sugars or which breaks down into them (that is starchy, carbohydrate foods like rice, pasta, any tubers such as potatos, yams, etc) will feed the yeast, which is exactly what ought not be going on right now. Unless there is some very specific and special property of the molasses allowing it to damage the specific species of yeast that I am ignorant of, this is about as bad an idea as trying to treat a yeast infection with antibiotics. Both literally make the yeast problem worse by making a more suitable environment for the yeast to thrive. So by giving molasses to all your birds, including the ones without symptoms of yeast overload, you may be pushing them closer to it.

Whenever treating any other animal suffering yeast infection, be it interior or exterior, removing carbohydrates - period - from the diet in the very short term will aid inputs like the ACV from another angle; the ACV realigns the pH to a place where the yeast does not thrive but other beneficial gut flora do, and the lack of sugars starves it out. Yeast is EXTREMELY persistent and tenacious stuff, so coming at it fast from multiple angles is best to not give it a time to adapt or get a breath, so to speak.

For the internal factor here, do continue dosing them with ACV, and make absolutely certain that your probiotic source (the yogurt):
1) really truly has LIVE & ACTIVE cultures. This is because tons of companies are swindling liars and they just claim to have living probiotic strains when they actually pasteurize and kill every organism in the yogurt without then reinoculating with Lactobacillus and other species. The yogurt is useless to their recovery without those beneficial bacteria.
2) does NOT contain sugar or other sweeteners. Only plain yogurt, or yogurt you've allowed to sit out until the sweet taste has gone away (other bacteria eat it up, thus the taste is gone). Again, if you're feeding them sugary foods you're doing the birds no favors by feeding the yeast.

I don't know about the fermented mash. I take it this is a processed product you bought? I'd avoid this as any "mash" product is just grains (ie carbs) and feed them on a variety of meat scraps + moderate fat scraps + gently cooked egg + all the leafy greens they will eat. This denies the yeast any sugars outright, and is only for the short term. They should have carbs and sugars from fruits and seeds in their diet under normal circumstances, once the gleet is dealt with.

For external treatment of the vent area - if the vent looks at all irritated - clean it thoroughly will water only. Then dab RAW ACV liberally and thoroughly onto the skin of and around the vent. I only recommend Braggs at this point unless you made it yourself. Once the ACV is on, using a clean Q-tip or something similar, dab on some of that same yogurt you feeding them. This helps to recolonize the area with the same beneficial organisms which can then migrate up into the gut.
 
Wow. That's great info! Thank you.

I had read in several different places that the system needs to be cleaned out. Stripping both good and bad bacteria using molasses or Epsom salt, then reintroducing good bacteria via yogurt and acv.
The mash is a 35% protein layer feed, just in a fairly fine granular form.
Good to know on the yogurt. Someone was just telling me something similar today re: probiotics.

I believe they've had the gleet for quite a while. They were battery hens until I got them. All of them had really brown fluff (they're white leghorns). I dusted them 4 times, and all but 2 niw have white fluff). When I dusted one of them I noticed a nasty smell and white mucus coming from the vent as well as a lot of poop in her fluff. So I did some research and learned about gleet. Just trying to do right by my girls.

P.s. would a severe case cause the laying of shell less eggs?
 
The mash is a 35% protein layer feed, just in a fairly fine granular form.
Good to know on the yogurt. Someone was just telling me something similar today re: probiotics. P.s. would a severe case cause the laying of shell less eggs?

If infection is severe enough, Vent Gleet could possibly cause shell-less eggs. Since these are ex-batt hens, they may be at the end of their laying cycle for the year. Other causes of soft-shell eggs are shell gland disorders, vitamin/nutritional deficiency and diseases like Infectious Bronchitis.

Just wanting to ask you - you are feeding a 35% protein layer mash? I'm not a nutritionist, but 35% is way up there - consider reducing it to 18-20%. Most layer feeds are around 16-17% and all flock formulas are 18-20%. Take a look at your feed label to make sure it says something like "complete poultry feed". Also look at your feed label - most commercial poultry feeds contain probiotics, but it doesn't hurt to offer extra for a few days when a chicken has been under the weather.

Offer oyster shell free choice for calcium. Once you get the Vent Gleet under control, offer poultry vitamins for a couple of days, then once a week to see if there is improvement.
 
I hear you on the idea of flushing out the system, but if you can alter the pH enough back in the correct direction whilst denying the yeast its food, it will die off under the incursion of beneficials and/or go dormant. You can never rid an organism of yeasts - even if you momentarily managed to with the use of crazy antibiotics, yeast would be the very first thing to take up residency again and it would be nightmarish in proportion due to its unfortunately tremendous virility and vitality. The addition of freshly minced Turmeric and/or Broadleaf/Ribwort Plantain species (Plantago major & P. lanceolata can also aid internally against the yeast owing to their anti-fungal properties. Could be mixed into their yogurt.

I can concur on the offering of crushed Oyster shell flakes to the hens. That is a very common source of getting calcium to your girls who need it in order to fully form their egg shells. They can also be fed the "recycled" egg shells from their own eggs. A lot of people will crush them up finely so as not to inadvertently train the hens in question to devour their own eggs. That kind of behavior is indicative of nutritional deficiency.

Depending on your living situation you might also want to look up the (really easy) cultivation of Black Soldier Fly larvae, or "BSF". Essentially it takes a lidded bucket with some holes poked in it at the right places, a steady source of compost, and somewhere to hang the contraption in the chicken yard. The resultant insects who feast on the compost wriggle out the bottom and right into the hen's buffet. In the wild, chickens gather much of the calcium (and protein) they need from the invertebrates that they eat whilst roaming around the jungle floor.

The poor things being ex-battery ladies, they've probably been deepening into calcium deficiency (amongst others) for a LONG time. They've been abused for their egg production, and may simply no longer have much ability to keep producing for long. Good on you for taking them and caring for them.
 

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