Sooo much pooping

[cavysqueak]

We have a light sussex who is about 10 months old. She has always had poo which can range from a white watery substance, through soft poo to 'normal'.

 

The issue is this: a very red bottom! The skin is normal - just red. There are no wounds, scabs, dry flaky patches or anything else seemingly wrong with the skin. The reason we spotted it is because the feathers had become thick with poo & were not fluffy anymore, so we could see in between the feathers. She doesn't seem to 'move' her tail as much as the other girls do when they are pooing - so maybe it is not being physically pushed far enough away? Also her vent seems smaller than the other girls', even though she is a large chicken. The vent itself is clean, she is happy & laying every day (throughout the whole winter).

 

We were wondering if the redness could just be an irritation / reaction to being too close to the poo which has been getting caught on the feathers? We've been regularly flubenvetting & we had an infestation of lice (not obvious on her though) so the girls are all regularly dusted with DE white powder as well. In the really cold patch I had to cut off the ends of a few feathers near the vent as they were coated with poo. Two weeks ago I decided that it was warm enough to try washing the feathers - which we did & then I've been coating the skin & feathers with petrolium jelly as often as we can - although its difficult to do this regularly at this time of year as we hardly get to see them - a couple of minutes before leaving for work & then just shutting them in the coop at night. The petrolium jelly seems to be working to reduce the redness, but then the redness just seems to come back again!

 

Any ideas as to reasons / preventative measures / treatment for the red skin?

 

Thanks.

[Pikey]

You sure its not new feathers growing....the skin can go red when this happens???

 

It could be her poo irritating the skin too...I use Sudocream as it soothing and has antiseptic qualities.