David

[keir]

A couple of days ago, I noticed one of our lovely hens (about a year old) who is normally in great health was trying to hide and run away from the other hens. When I went in to their run, I noticed that her back end was very wet and running with a clear liquid - maybe mucus. She was also bleeding a little, but i'm pretty sure that was from where the other hens have been having a good peck.

 

We isolated her straight away (she gets to dig up the garden whilst the rest of them are stuck in their run), and cleaned up the vent. We put sudocrem onto the vent to try to get it to heal. At the same time, we had a feel to make sure it wasn't a broken egg binding in there - there was nothing. Over the last couple of days, she has continued to run around the garden and eat normally, but her vent continues to drip liquid.

 

Does anybody have any ideas what this could be? I'm sure that she wants to get back into her nice Eglu, rather than having to sleep in a bucket in the shed away from the others.

[The Dogmother]

It could be any number of things - I'd worm the hen with Flubenvet, then serve up some Bokashi Bran in live yoghurt for a couple of days and see how it goes. It may just have an infection that needs vet treatment.

[Plum]

As I learnt with a couple of mine, dripping vent means inflamation.

 

It can be inflamation of the oviduct- has she had recent respiratory infection. or infection of gut. My first had inflamation of oviduct and recently another chicken had infection of the gut, after a trip to the vet and antibiotics (baytril) both recovered. The wetness continued for a bit afterwards but it is really worrying seeing just how much fluid drips from them.

 

If she has dead tissue around the vent from pecking then it helps to keep it creamed and it will seperate and clear up. Vet gave me Dermisol cream that cleaned it up really quickly. With the first girl I think I used sudocrem like you. It worked but took longer.

 

So what I'm really saying is I would start with vet. Hope it clears up ok.

[Christian]

I agree, dripping could be a number of things. Egg white for one or an infection. A vet will offer the best course of treatment and can advise you. probably antibiotics for the infection. I wouldn't return her to the others until she is completely healed. Good luck.