Thank you so much! I don't really know anything about vent gleet, but I will read the link you sent and do some research! The hens are still missing their bum feathers currently, but I wasn't sure when they would grow back.
and your run looks incredible honestly! Hopefully a little tlc will get their bums floofy again too
Aww, that's very kind of you. We worked very hard to make their coop, run, and aviary. I'm so happy with the way it turned out.Im glad the aprons are working for their back feathers
Cheers!
Hi, I have my first chickens also! It is so fun, I just love them like you do. The only thing I can say that I have noticed re any of your questions or observations, is that the feather loss on the head could be from Alex biting them on the head when he gets on top of them to mate. My rooster does that, but the feathers are not so much lost as broken a little bit. He is not overly rough on them, but he grabs them by the head at the beginning of his romantic moves. haha Also, his favorite girl does have a spot on her back where the feathers are broken and her skin shows pink in one spot. Same reason, he rubs on her there. If you use a magnifying glass or some strong reading glasses you can see little bugs moving near their vent if they have lice or mites. You could ask someone to hold them and take a good look. Then you can use permethrin (spelling?) to spray the vent area and under their wings and on their breast. Avoid face. Mine sometimes have a little poo on the fluffybutt feathers, but not much at all. I did worm mine once with medicine from the vet, I think it was Panacur, but not sure which worm it was for. I did take a fecal sample to the vet and she knew which worm it was, but I forget. They can get round worms and tapeworms and probably others. If you take a sample from one bird and find bugs, you need to treat them all, I think. Right now I have my first broody hen, a Buff Orpington, which is a breed that apparently tends to broodiness. It is a real problem! Her name is Daisy Mae and she just wants to sit in the nesting box, on an invisible egg, wanting to hatch some chicks. I take her off the nest, have given her a cool bath, sat her on my lap which had a cold pack so that she could cool off a bit, all these tips came from sources on line and it is a very interesting but distressing subject. Totally normal, but hard to break in my case, she is very devoted to her nesting box. I have to make sure she gets some food and water by taking her off and making her stay out of the coop for a bit, but she always wants to go sit again. I have read about Broody Jail, but so far I have not wanted to go that far. But I hear sometimes they are broody for a long time! I have used a wet cloth and a pan of water to wash fluffybutt feathers. Good luck sorry I am def not an expert but have learned those few things I shared, from a vet or from reading online. I only have 5 hens and one roo. Daisy and Sunny are yellow Buff Orpingtons and Sissy and Dolly are Barred Rock. Venus is a black sex-link, and the rooster is Ricky. Have fun with your flock!Howdy! This is my first post on Backyard Chickens. I am a first time chicken keeper. I've learned a lot from other threads on this site. However, I haven't found an answer to my particular problem.
I mail-ordered chicks (from Chickens for Backyards) back in July of 2023: three Buff Orpingtons, three Lavender Orpingtons, three Speckled Sussex (one is a rooster), and three Salmon Faverolles. Their names are Maisie, Leeli, Sadie, Elsie, Janie, Minnie, Brynn, Molly, Brie, Mari, Debbi, and the rooster Alek. Yes, I know Brynn doesn't rhyme with the others. She was supposed to rhyme with Lynn but he ended up being the rooster.
My chickens are suuuper sweet. They veeery rarely ever pick at each other. They all are very good friends and love to be together. They also absolutely love hugs. Even my rooster hops up on my lap to get hugs anytime I sit down. We have a little couch in the aviary and, if I sit down, at least five or six will hop up on my lap or snuggle next to me.
They don't free-range because of so many predators in our area (we have a resident hawk named Pippin), but they have 400 square feet of space total (not counting the coop): 100 sq. ft. enclosed run with a tunnel to a 300 sq. ft. netted aviary.
We get about 7-10 eggs per day. They are clean and regularly shaped.
They always have access to good healthy food, water (sometimes with acv or an oregano mix), oyster shells, alfalfa pellets, etc. They have a dust bath of peat moss, diatomaceous earth (don't come at me for it), homegrown sage (when I have it), and sulfur. Admittedly, I think I ran out of sulfur or just didn't add enough right before the symptoms I'm about to explain occurred.
They had all been in good health -- with beautiful feathers.
-Feather Loss-
March 2nd: I suddenly noticed my SS, Brynn, had lost all her bum feathers. Her skin was very flaky and red. I cried cause I thought maybe she was dying. I did as much research as I could but it just scared me more. We did everything we could to help her. She got a good bath and hen-healer lathered on the area. In the morning, the skin looked very healthy and wasn't red at all.
March 3rd: I took her over to my neighbor to see what she thought. She was super helpful and almost positive it was feather mites/lice (Phew! She wasn't dying like I thought.) We checked the other hens out to see if it had spread to them. My rooster, Alek, had lost some bum feathers as well and his skin was bright red (it didn't calm down from a bath). We cleaned the coop and run from top to bottom and treated everything we could with Gordon's Permithrin -- 1:200 dilution. We sprayed the hens that day with a Pyrethrin spray that we ended up realizing had expired a long time ago. It was given to us by someone else, and we hadn't checked the exp. date.
March 5th: We sprayed them with Gordon's Permithrin. The affected chickens got epsom salt baths every night when the skin flared up red. They got blow-dried. Then we applied hen-healer to their bums.
March 15th: I noticed Elsie, Janie, Minnie, and Maisie had started to lose back feathers. The Lavs had lost the whole feathers, whereas the Buff had lots of broken feathers and a couple bare spots in addition. I didn't really know, but I assumed this may be from mating? To be safe, we treated them again ten days after first use of the Permithrin.
March 21st: We hoped everything was alright but then I noticed my other SS, Molly, started losing bum feathers as well. We treated once again (each time was a freshly mixed solution), seven or eight days after the previous treatment.
I have noticed all along that around the bare areas, there is a lot of flaky skin. The skin isn't red at all, but it's peeling. We spray blu kote on the bare areas. They are all eating and drinking well.
-Poopy Feathers-
Their poops are normal (to the best of my knowledge) -- maybe a little watery occasionally (I'm also assuming this is cecal poo.) The dropping board usually has well formed poos. Their vents looks okay. I did noticed that two hen's vents were ever so slightly wet with something sort of yellow. But it really was barely anything. I don't know if that's normal or not. Poo keeps sticking to their bum feathers and caking on (especially Brynn back when she had bum feathers). I trimmed them a while back (which is part of why I didn't notice Brynn losing feathers) and it lasted about a month before they got covered in poo again. The dirty feathers also tend to drop out or just remain as a bare shaft. I have no reason to think it is a feed issue; They eat very healthy.
So all this to say, should I be concerned about mites or lice still being present? Is it even mites or lice? None of the tests I have done that people suggest have shown proof of mites. Is the flaky skin from lice or is it another issue? Is the poo sticking to feathers something I need to be worried about? I don't know anything about worms, but they didn't seem to have any other symptoms. I am going to try and do my own fecal test soon to see if there are any worm eggs present.
I haven't noticed any lethargy or other symptoms mentioned in regards to mites, lice, or worms.
If you have made it through this lengthy post, I thank you. I love my chickens so much and I want to do my best to take care of them. I would appreciate advice from some experienced chicken keepers. Thank you again.
-- Elspeth
Soli Deo GloriaView attachment 3781765View attachment 3781767View attachment 3781768View attachment 3781769View attachment 3781771View attachment 3781774
That's so exciting you are a first-time chicken keeper too! They are a lot of work, but they are such sweet little creatures.
So far, I haven't actually seen any lice/mites. If we did have any, they seem to have gone away when we applied Permethrin several times. I'm so thankful for that. I've heard nightmare stories about those little buggers!
We just had a Buff Orpington, named Sadie, go broody about three weeks ago! She would sit on an invisible egg too. She was very intent on trying to hatch chicks and sat in there all the time. I was worried about her.
This is exactly what we did! For Sadie, it helped her to get a break just while we did it, but then she went right back in the nesting box when we finished with bath, ice pack, etc.
I felt bad to put a chicken in broody jail as well. Nothing else we did seemed to bring her out of her broodiness. We eventually decided to make a broody jail.
I see your hens have a rhyming theme to! All of ours (except Brynn) rhyme too! I hope you have a nice day!
