vent gleet?

[Eggcessive]

Yes the castor oil is for leg mites. I would just clean off the bottoms, pull off poops, trim if necessary, and dry them. Look for lice or mites. No creams. You can post some pictures of vents for more opinions.

 

[trudyg]

Thanks.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

when Jewel puffed up to poop, I saw that her backside was bright red.

Do you have photos?
Is the skin surrounding the vent bright red?

 

[trudyg]

Sorry, I don't have photos. When I saw it, the skin was very noticably red, not just around the vent but her whole backside, and her butt feathers looked like dreadlocks. So I immediately set out fresh water w/ more acv than usual and gave them yogurt. The next day the dreadlocks were about half gone and she was pink, not red but not regular skin either. This morning the butts are all clean. Poops on the board look normal, no puddling or excessive wetness on the pdz. There is also no unusual odor. (pdz keeps my coop smelling fairly fresh and I would notice an unusual smell)

All 4 of my hens tend to have poop remains on the butt feathers at times. I have, in the past, checked for vent gleet, mice, lice and found nothing. The skin then was not pink, just normal looking. It's like the feather shaft and skin is clean but there's something white (urates?) on the very outside tip of the feathers, maybe 4-5 spots, and then it's gone when next I look for it. Someone had said the poop is not clearing the feathers on it's way out.

So, I reassessed my treats, feed, etc and it improved until this episode. When they get melon I can tell more loose poops on the board, so I dole it out in smaller measure and even then it's not often. There are only 2 of us at home and not many leftovers, occasionally some fish or vegetables, but they mainly get layer feed (when it's gone they'll all get flockraiser until the new chicks change to layer).

They are not overweight, are alert and active. The only thing about miss dreadlock is that she will head up to bed fairly early, like 6 pm. She's always done this. When I go out to button up the babies in their tractor she'll come flying out hoping for treats and then stay out until the others go in. That doesn't strike me as odd, since Rosie waits until the ador door beeps before heading that way--she'd stay out all night if it didn't beep.

I'm also dealing with scaly leg mite, dipping their legs every morning, but I don't think that would make a difference. The dreadlocks are not greasy like her belly feathers.

 

[Eggcessive]

In my chickens if I see something like the dreadlocks you descibe, there may be lice eggs. I would grab up a few and part their feathers and look for tiny lice scurrying off. Permethrin spray is good for lice, and then the newly hatched eggs10 days later.

 

[Eggcessive]

Here is another of the good links for pictures of lice:
http://anrcatalog.ucanr.edu/pdf/8162.pdf

 

[trudyg]

the stuff is at the end of the feather farthest from her body. There is no evidence of lice along the shaft of the feather nor did I see any on her body. It's like she shot out a messy poop and it caught on the end of the feathers, then got in the dirt of her dust bath. Strange.

 

[trudyg]

To update: I just bathed Jewel again this morning. She had some large poops stuck in her feathers around her vent, maybe some dried up just on the vent itself. She got a good soaking (which she did not like!) in warm water with epsom salts. I soaked and picked off the poops, trimming feathers as I went. Had I know it would be that nasty I would have had another pan of warm water for a second, cleaner soak, but all I had was an extra pail of warm water to rinse her off. Anyway, no bugs of any kind anywhere-good thing. Her skin is very dry and flaky. Her backside skin, not just right at the vent but her entire backside, is no longer red and just a tinge of pink. After her cleaning, I dried her off and applied fungal cream (no evidence of fungus but just because it was pink). Then I oiled her legs real well with castor oil (since we've been dealing with scaly leg anyway). I didn't see any reason to use bluKote since she wasn't so red.

What do I do for the dry skin? Since I have young birds, I switched from layer pellets to all flock when the layer feed was used up. The bigs had been eating chick food along with their layer food since we got the babies since they're really pigs and want what's not theirs. Should I put some sort of oil in their food? I can make a mash and feed it every day.

I don't have time today to bathe the rest of them, but their butts look messy and then they clean it up.

 

[Eggcessive]

Some brand name chicken feeds now contain omega-3 fatty acids, which are similar to fish oil. That helps with dry skin. You might try adding some water to your feed in a pan that can be cleaned each day. Or try some olive or canola oil on pellets and stir well. That is a good way to get vitamin powder or other medicine to stick to pellets or crumbles. Usually, I only see dry skin around molting time, and that is perfectly normal.

 

[trudyg]

I just came in from looking at my chickens. This particular hen has slept at one end of the roost for some time now, but last night she had a buddy sleeping next to her. Her but is still more red than I would like, but clipping the feathers back made a difference and at least her butt is clean. I'm hoping to wash the other 4 butts in the near future, but I'm not able to do it before work and can't catch them until they've gone to roost, so probably next weekend. If there's no discharge, odor or white patches then it's not vent gleet--so what is it? some kind of pasty butt in adult birds? There were no bugs at all, just flaky skin. So, I'm adding oils to their diet....