The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: loosey on April 19, 2011, 02:13:27 pm
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??? :o First trauma and not even a day in! We picked up 6 chickens last night from an organic farm. They laid 4 eggs this morning which was very unexpected after the move! :) I've just noticed that one of them has quite a dirty bottom ??? Shall I clean her up or could it be a sign of something more worrying?
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Seperate her and take her back.
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Well, it *can* be a sign of something serious, but it isn't always. It happened to one of ours once. Basically she got a dose of the squits from eating something or other, but the worse it got, the worse it got if you see what I mean! It turned out there was actually nothing wrong with her, but just that everything was so caked and smelly around there that she didn't have a chance of it cleaning up on its own. In the end, all she needed was a good sponge bath and a trim of some of her bum fluff ;D so it kept clear in future.
I would isolate her from the rest so you can keep an eye on her and identify which are her poos, and would clean up all around her vent so you can monitor the situation.
One thing to mention if you're new to chooks is that one poo in four or five will be really yellow, foamy and smelly. This is perfectly normal (google Cecal faeces for more info).
HTH!
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It will be difficult to take her back as the farm is a good hour from us. I can put her in the duck house tonight if that might help? I checked them all over before we loaded them and all seemed fine. Could it be the stress of the move? I will clean her up before bed time and see how we go! Thank you!! :)
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Just isolate her for a few days, any breed will get a mucky bum from time to time, particularly booted like Brahma and Orpingtons. Keep the vent area trimmed and sponge it with warm water. If its serious and you can afford a vet fine, if not and the birds not showing signs of illness keep an eye on her and she should be fine.
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some of mine have dirtier bums than normal at the moment, have put it down to longer greener grass but keeping an eye on them and they are being wormed over this week with Marriages pellets.
I think Womble's idea of looking at some pictures of chookie poo is a good one because I know I was really shocked by some of what came out of our first hens' bums :o takes a bit of getting used to lol.
if she does have a tummy upset (or even if you are not sure) it might be an idea to give her some of that actimel type yogurt to balance her happy bacterias etc :)