Peacocks

[txswanie]

One of my girls has suddenly lost a lot of the feathers on her bum. What's left is poop covered and the skin in dry and sore looking. I have cleaned her off and applied Neosporin to the sore looking bits. Someone has been laying softies for a while and today I discovered this girl with stringy gunky stuff coming out of her and what looked like uncooked scrambled egg on the floor. I presume she is the softie layer, I have to say she doesn't look right. For a start she let me pick her up with no fuss, that in itself is weird and she seems to be drinking lots. I have checked her and the coop for mites etc cant see anything. I am waiting on my shipment of Flubinvet to arrive from the UK so will worm when that gets here but cant see signs of anything in the poop. Giving them apple cider vinegar, grit and boiled eggs. In the meantime does anyone have any clues?

Thanks

Colette.

[txswanie]

UPDATE.

Just a thought. Could the feather loss be a moult? Do chickens moult in the spring? She is a 1 year old GR, never moulted before. I have just looked at her bum and the white pointy tubes are appearing in some spots. Could the softie situation be unconnected to the feather loss? I cant find anything on the web that connects the 2 symptoms.

sorry, always worry too much.

Colette

[Egluntyne]

Generally they concentrate their energies into either egg laying or feather growing, so the two issues could be impacting on each other.

 

If the gunky stuff becomes smelly, I'd take her to the vet.

[txswanie]

I think that an egg has broken inside her. It really does look like the insides of an egg coming out without the shell. Apart from bathing her and perhaps cleaning out her vent, what else can I do for this? I haven't seen blood and the fact that she has had a few softies over the past week makes me hope that it was a soft shell egg that broke. I know this can be serious. Should I bathe her vent for a few days? Antibiotics? Quarantine of course. This one scares me.