what is wrong with my chicken?

[agnes_day]

be careful..i had a whole bunch of chickens that died and they all started out with the white stuff around the vent and feathers..but as long as she isnt lethargic its probably not what mine had.

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Do you see any sores, because pus in birds comes out like cheese. I'd clean her vent and see if there are any sores or holes. Or if the discharge is from the vent, then she's infected. I personally wouldn't touch the eggs. I don't know if this is infectious because I can't see it myself.

I still suspect vent gleet, but it could be bacterial and the two treatments are different. (And by the way, please don't treat with anything terramycin as that is the absolute wrong choice). Bacterial treatment would likely be penicillin, yeast treatment would likely be copper sulfate.


She's probably bleeding as her inflammed vent is cracking when she lays. That might be the source of the cheese: pus from fissures in the cracking and inflammed vent. Any chance that you can get a picture of it?

Clean the vent daily. Smell the droppings by the way - are they worse smelling than normal ones?

I would definitely remove her from the flock. That's a given with any hen that has something like this.

I would highly recommend organic apple cider vinegar in the water in case this is fungal/yeast. Also check her mouth for any of the same cheesy (but smaller) types of exudates.

You could technically do a "real" flush for *one day* in case of either bacterial or yeast issues versus the gentle flush. I think I would do this actually. This will flush out excess bad bacteria (or fungi/yeast) and allow a more clean playing field for the yogurt to put back good bacteria, the OACV to correct the pH.

You have three choices - epsom salts, molasses, or castor oil. I like the molasses flush (with some applesauce). But if you have one of the other ingredients we could go with that.

The plan would be: flush the bird one day during a four hour period. Follow up with a day of electrolytes in the water. The following rest of the week you will use OACV in the water. The whole week you will use the yogurt. If you wanted to, you could also put in a clove of garlic in the water for the following week as well. It's a farmer's remedy but it won't hurt anything. There are other treatments (copper sulfate or bluestone, or potassium permanganate but that's with another ingredient and it's hard to find). But I think I'd want to see a picture first.

One thing you might try to see if you can differentiate between the two is treat as above (flush, yogurt, OACV, garlic) for gleet and then treat topically all this week at the same time (very important) with Lotrimin, the athelete foot creme. If you see a change in her vent, then you'll know it's yeast. If you don't, it's likely bacterial. The yeast treatments will help in all cases as a bacterial infection would lead to greater susceptibility to yeast infections anyway. The only thing missing would be immediate bacterial treatment if it's bacteria.

Then again you could do both. Give penicillin g procain shots every other day for three days, treat for yeast at the same time, and just take no chances.

Your thoughts?

 

[brewwerks]

This is the picture (if it works)of the infected chickens vent. Does this look like anything you have seen? Thanks

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Your commands are mixed - it should be IMG at the first. I just upload mine all to photobucket.com. The account is free. Then if you cursor over the picture, it'll give you the full image code that you copy and then paste into this typing area.

 

[brewwerks]

Trying the photo a last time. Looking at the chicken this morning, her vent is now swollen and seems to be protruding. thanks again for any help.

 

[dlhunicorn]

you are trying to post a photo direct from your computer and that will not work... you need to first upload it to a photohoster (such as PHOTOBUCKET > it is free) and then post the photo link from your photobucket to here.