vent gleet

Hi Everyone ☺️ I have 2 hens with vent gleet. They both have poop on their butts, plus feather loss, swelling and redness on their abdomens. I am treating with natural methods, ACV in their water, yogurt with live and active cultures, and Epsom soaks. Wondering how long is it reasonable to continue natural treatment before I see improvement and what will be the initial signs of improvement?

Howdy! Welcome to Permies! It's always nice to have someone to talk about chickens with.

Yikes. So, ACV in the water, yogurt in the food offered. Epsom soaks. It all sounds great. How long have you been treating them?
How old are they?
Vent gleet is a very inaccurate diagnosis that can be caused by a number of things, so it's hard to say how long it can take to treat, but ...
If they don't show improvement within a couple of days, you may want to consider stronger measures.

The most important things are keeping the vent area as clean and dry as possible - hard to do considering.  
I rechecked my sources and they seem to agree that stress is a Big Deal. Hopefully, you've been able to separate them from the rest of your birds (or are they the only ones?), and can monitor their food and water.
Really, clean and dry, reduce stress, separate from flock, ACV in the water, yogurt with their feed, and they should start showing signs of improvement really quickly. You can use a needle-less syringe to flush their vent with an iodine/water solution, but be gentle with it; Adding vitamins and really good food never hurts.

Best of luck to you and them!
Some websites:
PamperedChickenMama
BackYard Chickens

(edited for clarity)

Kristine Keeney, thank you so much for your reply =) I have been having a hard time getting any feedback on this topic. One of the chickens is 3y/o or older and the other is older than 4 or 5y/o, but I don't know their age exactly. I have been treating them since 5/24 without improvement, so it sounds like it's time for stronger measures. Would that be medication they swallow or the iodine flush?

I have separated them, they are in their own little coop with a small run. I have been doing Epsom soaks every 2 days, and cleaning their vents at the end of each soak, but I feel I am causing them a lot of stress with all the handling and putting them in water.

They also have mites. Can this be the stress that brought the vent gleet on? I have made them a dust bath and put DE in there for the mites. I believe their lives are very low stress as far as I can tell. I feel they are more stressed now that I am trying to treat them than when they were with their flock

Very grateful for your guidance and suggestions!

They are at good ages and should be able to recover. I'm glad you have been able to separate them from the others. Vent gleet isn't usually transmissible, but if there's something stressing the flock, it can definitely spread.

The mites might have been a final tipping point for them. There are a few ways to deal with the mites, but the better ones, at least the ones avoiding lots of harsh chemicals or medications, involve you cleaning lots of stuff..
Mites tend to live in cracks on the perches where they roost. They will also dig into cracks anywhere the chickens spend a lot of time. If the flock has mites, they will need treatment, too, or they will be a continuing problem.

DE works, but it takes time. Giving the roosts and any flat surface where your birds spend time a good scrubbing with hot, soapy water, maybe a coat of lime wash (the paint), and/or painting the roosts or flat surfaces will go a long way to helping get rid of mites and lice. You want to get the insects out of their hiding places, and seal off the hiding places. The hot soapy water will flush them out, the paint or lime wash will seal the cracks.
Then the DE can do its magic!

Yes, they should be showing improvement by now. I have read where some stubborn cases need frequent washing - I had one book actually recommend a bath once a day to keep the birds clean and dry - I thought that was too much, or for a particularly advanced case. You shouldn't need more than a couple of baths, maybe every couple of days but ... it depends on how severely sick they are.

They are stressed. They don't feel good, they can't be with their friends and family, and there's this person giving them baths! They will adjust to it. It's not as stressful as not taking care of them. I wouldn't worry about what you're doing stressing them. It's stressful, yes. It's also bad for them to not have the treatment.

Since they aren't responding to the Epsom soaks, you will need to go a little further.
Wash the chickens in warm water, with a little soap. Carefully clean their vent area and remove any feathers that might be in the irritated area. They won't like it. Make sure you rinse them well with warm water to remove any soap. This also helps with removing any mites that might be on them.
You can dry them gently with a towel and let them air dry someplace they won't get chilled.
If you have iodine or Betadine available, or a similar supportive wound care solution, dilute that in water (iodine should be diluted, Betadine is usually used as a wash) and use it to rinse the area.
If you don't have iodine available, you can use ACV as a rinse to flush the vent and lower the pH of the cloaca. If the skin is very irritated, the chicken may try to get away.
Using ACV, or a dilute citric acid solution to flush the vent will help to lower the pH and remove whatever is irritating the vent. It's really important to remove the source of the irritation, whatever it might be, or they won't get well.

The Epsom salt soak is providing supportive care, but it isn't helping them as much as it should. That's why I'm suggesting a more thorough wash and flush. If there's a way you can get the ACV into the vent, gently, to flush the infection out a bit, that would really help them.

Please let us know how things are going for them. They should be showing signs of getting better. I hope they show signs of improvement soon.
This website recommends using antifungal and antibacterial medications, but otherwise offers good advice : Vent Gleet treatment

Kritine Keeney, thanks again! I am so with you on avoiding harsh chemicals and medications! So grateful for the recommendations on how to deal with mites. The rest of the flock seems quite itchy, so it does seem like the mites need to be addressed in the whole flock.

It's cute how you describe the hens' experience with being isolated and bathed <3 Thank you for reassuring me that I am doing something important for them even if they do not like it I will check if we have iodine, but we definitely have ACV with mother. Hopefully we have a syringe, I think I recall seeing one in the kitchen. It won't be sterile though. Is that okay?

Thank you for the article link. I am assuming we can avoid crop feeding them since they still have an appetite?

As long as they are willing to eat on their own, I wouldn't feed them by tube or syringe. There's no reason. If they're sick enough to stop eating, then you can justify the extra handling.

A non-sterile syringe should be fine, as long as it's clean. You're trying to put dilute ACV into their vent. That doesn't call for anything sterile.

I try to see everything from the involved-critter's point of view. It means I might be a bit more careful about some things, but less careful about others. If it matters to the treatment, then I'll do things by the book. If it's not that important, for whatever reason, I'll let things slide a bit.
Chickens, even well-handled ones, don't like to be handled unless they initiate it, or there is food involved. It might be easier to think of them as kind of like feathered cats - most of the time they are fine, will be sociable and are content to eat whatever. When they get sick, they don't feel good and everything is bad. Letting them decide what or when they do something, like eating, is easy enough to do.

If they are too sick to eat, then they really need to be tube fed. If they aren't drinking water, they need to be hydrated. They need the treatment for their vents so they don't get even more sick. They wouldn't take the baths on their own, so you have to do that for them, even if they complain.

If you want to do something for them but don't know what, you can give them vitamins formulated for chickens. 'Rooster Booster' is a name brand available in the US and, I think UK. I keep a supply of assorted stuff that's just for chickens (Grow Gel, Chick Quick, and Rooster Booster, wound care stuff, "blue" dust) for "just in case", and hope I never need to use any of it. (I've used it all at some point. I keep hoping I don't need it.)
I hope your birds are doing well and showing improvement!

Thank you Kristine! The younger of the hens improved and joined the flock =) The older one unfortunately is deteriorating There was talk of culling her.

ps I love how cutely you describe the chickens' inner experience <3

Yeka Sorokina wrote:Thank you Kristine! The younger of the hens improved and joined the flock =) The older one unfortunately is deteriorating There was talk of culling her.

ps I love how cutely you describe the chickens' inner experience <3

I'm glad the younger one improved! That's wonderful!
I'm sorry the older one isn't getting better.

A lot of my older hens are having trouble this year and ageing out of the flock. It's a fact of life that getting older means that everything seems to hit harder, even if the youngsters can just throw it off. I am sorry that you have to face that with your hen.

I deal with my poultry daily , sometimes hourly, and tend to like their individual personalities, when they have them. Not all birds are friendly enough to show their "chickenalities", but the ones that do tend to be real characters. It means I can sit down in the back shed and tell the flock my problems or just talk to them and they will gather around and do chicken stuff. It's peaceful.
My gander is currently yelling about the neighbor who is out mowing his lawn. He was yelling at me earlier while I filled water buckets. He's currently mad at me, but won't let that stop him from telling me there are things he thinks I should be concerned about going on. There are times I think he would make a better goose dinner than a guard goose, but we get through it.
Here, the  poultry have a job. When they are too old or otherwise unsuited for the job they go on to do something else.
As my martial arts instructor says - "Everybody works, Nobody quits!" It's a decent philosophy for a homestead, too.

I'm glad you like the way I talk about chickens. It's how I try to think of them - complicated critters who share a part of our lives. I don't think of them as pets, but a lot of people around here, where I live, do.
I do my best to take care of them the way I think they should be cared for. That's all any of us can do, really.

I hope you have a good time with your flock! I look forward to seeing you around the forums.

Hi Kristine Thank you! I am sad to say that the older hen died the day before yesterday There is another sick hen with an awful growth on her belly that looks painful. I will start another thread for that.

I am curious, how come you do not think of chickens as pets?

Yeka Sorokina wrote:Hi Kristine Thank you! I am sad to say that the older hen died the day before yesterday There is another sick hen with an awful growth on her belly that looks painful. I will start another thread for that.
I am curious, how come you do not think of chickens as pets?

I'm so sorry to hear that the older hen died. It's hard to lose a good hen.
I have written you a response on the thread you started about the hen with the painful growth. I have some questions for you, and some hopefully helpful advice.

I'll start another thread to answer your question about how I see chickens as livestock, instead of pets.