Vent Gleet In Backyard Poultry

Today's  episode is part of our summer series. We focus on vent gleet in backyard chickens.



http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/vent-gleet

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my beautiful people. Welcome back to Wilma the wonder HS podcast today, we're gonna continue on our series of summer and poultry care. During the summer months, today's topic is event Glu. You may hear it as pacing, uh, but technically it is called CLO a scientist. Uh, the CLO ASCI, uh, this is just basically, uh, I'm gonna read you a definition from poultry D V M CLO ASCI commonly referred to as VLY is the inflammation of the chickens. Cloaka it isn't a specific disease, but more of a gastrointestinal condition that can be caused by a number of different reasons, including many types of organisms, whether it be fungi, protozoa, parasite, yeast, and bacteria. Hey, y'all I'm Mel and you are listening to Wilma the wonder hand, are you a chicken mouth loving mama daddy together? We'll dive into the latest poultry keeping adventures shout about everyday life. We're the generous mix of some hilarious stories, bringing you fascinating interviews with poultry owners from all over you'll find tips and basic advice from your local veterinarian. Along with new chicken, keeping gadgets and reviews. I'm gonna see what Mr. JS and Wilma has to say about that. We're going to encourage and help you build a stronger, healthier flop. Let's go see what Mr. JS and Wilma is up to. Let's go let these heifers out. And if you have had, or have currently have a chicken, whether it be a hint or a rooster that is suffering from VNK glee, or has had VLE, it is pretty nasty. It is definitely in a very uncomfortable situation for them. The CLO ACA is a three chamber structure that is located inside of the chickens vent. Now, to kind of explain it without overly explain it, you have three chambers, and at the end of this chamber, the vent, uh, you will have several systems. You have the digestive, the urinary and the reproductive track. And inside of this, there is several little valves that open and close, depending on if an egg is gonna come out, if they are, uh, getting ready to poop, or they're gonna mix in the poop in the urine. So that opening allows, uh, the digestive track, the urinary track and the reproductive track to all do their thing. And when there is a mix up or something occurs like stress in the peach balance or level within that, uh, chamber those three chambers, uh, that is when the poop kind of gets backed up and it starts to become very pasty. Now, signs of this could be son-in-law of feather and color pasting up of the vent feathers, um, soft belly and abdomen that will feel very soft and bloated, uh, lack of just behavior, lack of foraging, lack of eating, lack of just being a chicken. You may notice a very strong smell coming from their vent area. And as it advances, you may see that your chicken is straining to poop. They can have a red in, um, swollen vent area. You may even hear your chicken farting<laugh>, it's true. Uh, they may, uh, towards the end, if untreated get loss of appetite, uh, just looking very, very dull. I know we see on the internet when people say vent glee, and they automatically go to a fungus, which I understand, you know, not everyone has a veterinarian that they can just take a sample to, but there are different types of event GLE. If you're unable to clear this up, I really would suggest taking a sample to your veterinarian. Even if it's not a chicken veterinarian, maybe they could pinpoint if it's bacterial. You know, if it's fungus, if it's protozoa, cuz each of those will need something different in a medication, but general first supportive care, you can bring your chicken inside. Um, you can make an intensive care unit, you know, with easily ACC, easy access to food and water limit their stress. Uh, you can give them a nice little bath and gently get that dried poop off of the chickens vent because you don't wanna leave that on there that that poop is going to deteriorate the chicken skin. And you also don't want to leave it on there, uh, for fly strike, because we talked about this in our previous episode, you know, poop is a magnet for fly. So you could end up with a totally different, um, problem to deal with. You can also take a Sal saline solution wound wash. You can gently rinse out a massage. The Chlo ACA area, uh, apply a Edine and a septic unless it's told differently by a veterinarian as a disclaimer. Like I always tell y'all I am not a veterinarian. I don't even play one on this podcast. I share information with you that I have researched, uh, through scientific research papers, uh, through vet that's poly poly is, uh, very vocal here lately. So take all of these things that I'm telling you, and please do your own research on what would work best for your situation because only, you know, your chicken best. I know when my chicken here had vent cleat, that was several years ago, maybe four or five years ago, uh, we ended up getting a prescription from her veterinarian. She did prescribe Vetol. Uh, the brand name is Flagel. This medication, uh, is used to treat certain bacterial infections and protozoal, uh, protozoa infections, certain types of parasites. So when you're trying to treat VLY at home, I think it's gonna be challenging because you have to figure out what are you dealing with. So you're gonna have to start with something at home that you can easily get and go from there. Now, a lot of places will tell you that this isn't contagious, um, that it can't be transmitted from hand to hand or hand to rooster. My veterinarian, uh, told me to separate her, which I did anyways, uh, but to keep from spreading to my rooster and then my rooster spreading it to my hands because it is such a close contact when they do mate, a fun fact, did you know the word Chlo ACA can translate into cesspool or sewer, which kind of makes sense, but just thought you ought to know that. And from what I understand through my veterinarian and through reading, the way stress works is that stress can weaken the tone and function of the CLO AA. So this allows the poop in the urine. Now, remember we talked about it has three chambers, right? It has for the reproductive for the urine and for the poop. So when it stresses the CLA AA, the poop in the urine can start to mix and this can prevent recycling of the water back into their, uh, digestive system. And this can throw off their pH levels, those valves within their, uh, chamber that goes into the Cloaka and then out of their booty hole, uh, this is where that delicate balance gets off. And this is where we kind of need to figure out exactly what is causing it. It can be an infected Cloaka, uh, like I said, it could also be some type of parasite going on. So getting a fecal sample is definitely a plus, uh, for those that have tried the treatment at home and it's still not working. And the most important part is that if it is bacterial, you know, this is something that you're gonna have to treat with antibiotics. So it's so important to kind of really be able to narrow it down. But if you're out here in the world and you're trying to do the best you can, uh, chicken mamas and chicken daddies are a lot of times we're left or our own devices, our own research, our own, just trying to figure things out. So the most common, uh, solution that I saw, uh, online was once you give them a bath, once you get that their butt cleaned up, once you spray it down with some vet spray, um, maybe trim up some feathers if necessary is you're gonna treat it with mono cream. Now this can be a result of CCR too. So that's something else to look at. If your chicken has CCR and van fleet, there's something going on that needs to be taken care of both ends. And obviously if your bird has CCR, you're gonna do extra steps to take care of that. Most people can find monad or the generic for monad cream and suppositories at their local drugstore, Walmart, whatever big box store you find, you're usually gonna be able to find that you can find the generic. Uh, I believe they're all the same. I check the ingredients, make sure there's nothing extra added in there. The typical treatment that I, uh, found was five days. Obviously, if there's no improvement in five days, really seek out of veterinarian. If you can't seek out a veterinarian, then I would give it a few more days, uh, to see if there's any improvement. Now you can use the cream and you can also use the suppositories. The suppositories would be cut up into thirds. You can give this, uh, through a suppository. You can also give this as a cream that you rub on the outside and the inside. You can give the suppositories as a oral treatment clarification on the cream, the cream you want is for internal. You don't want the external itch cream. You want the internal. Okay. So make sure you check that now. Do I know if any of these applications work? I have no idea we treated it, uh, with the veterinarian. Luckily grateful. I know I'm very grateful for that. I, I do not know if the Monta is helpful, uh, specifically if it's a bacterial type thing and you're gonna need antibiotics. So this is treat at your own risk. Now, vaguely, if left untreated is pretty severe, it can lead to death because you're blocking up that digestive system, uh, the hand towards the end or the rooster towards the end, you know, they're not eating, they're not drinking. And their quality of life is really not any good. So I mean, we have to do what we have to do and try and figure out these remedies. And that's what we're here for. Kind of figuring these things out as we go. I did find some research about chronic vent elite. You know, this is something that can just happen. That doesn't mean that you're a bad mom or chicken mom or chicken dad. Uh, this type of thing can happen. Uh, but chronic vent glee, it could be genetically something wrong with the, the bird, or it could be a environmental thing where they are, the birds are under stress, you know, constantly, maybe small spaces, lack of food, uh, fighting for water. You know, those types of things can cause a constant stress on the bird system and wear down their immune system. Now it could be other things that are going on moldy food, uh, maybe CCR that's come back off and on, uh, the chronic vile it more than likely would need, uh, antibiotics, definitely more testing to see what is inside of the digestive tract. What is going on? So our takeaways, you want to keep an eye on your birds vent. That includes roosters and Hins, uh, try and provide as much space as possible. Keep an eye on that poop, keep an eye on any out for any stinky poop, any smelly, poop, poop. That's like building up on the back of their vent. It's very dangerous, even not just part of the vent cleat, but for potentially fly strike, uh, for hygiene, it's just not good. So you wanna keep those feathers clean. You can do this through bathing. You can do this through trimming of the, um, vent feathers. You just wanna make sure you please do not cut a pin feather if your chickens are malting and you're not sure what a pin feather looks like, and this is kind of new to you. You can just go online type in, uh, malting pin feathers, and you can get an idea visually of what you're looking for and what you wanna stay away from. Uh, molting chicken should not be handled too much anyways, but of course, if it's got a dirty bum, we gotta do what we gotta do. Just do it in the right way. I have read that you can also give yogurt a little bit of yogurt. You can add apple cider vinegar. You can add probiotics to the water for us. The veterinarian just, uh, recommended a probiotic, uh, not yogurt, not apple cider vinegar. It, she actually gave us little packets of probiotics to add to her water and it did help. And she was, uh, cured. It took about two and a half weeks. And at that time, her feathers on her vent had, you know, just fallen out. Her skin was really red and irritated. Uh, you wouldn't, uh, know it if you had saw her maybe a month and a half later, uh, she has passed on now. She was one of my older girls that I got, uh, when I first started chicken keeping, she was one of my already grown hints. And I don't know if the stress of, you know, me taking her in caused it or whatever, but she was the only one in my group that got it. Uh, but she did really good on the treatment and she just passed from old age, but please don't feel bad if you're he in or your little RO has, you know, had a, a problem with vent Clete. These are all things that we, uh, deal with and we need to talk about and not be embarrassed. You know, they are wild.<laugh>, they're wild, domesticated animals. And I say wild because chickens are just, they're looking for a death sentence every day. They're jumping off stuff, drinking outta stuff, picking out stuff, you know, they're just wild and free. So don't feel bad. You know, when your chicken does get an illness or something, I mean, we, we can do the best we can with making sure we're giving them a standard of care, but sometimes things just happen and there's not really much we can do about it. We can give it our all, and that's all we can do. I'm here to encourage you to be your cheerleader, to let you know that you can do it. That even when it seems hard and it seems confusing and you feel helpless. Uh, I have been there and I think we all have been there and we can just tell you that it's gonna be okay. Uh, just reach out to someone that may have more knowledge than you, more experience, but I also want you to be a researcher. I want you to be your own researcher. I want you to be able to have the confidence to check on what people are saying, you know, is that true? What does that cuz there's a lot of information out there that you need to sift through. Lots of misinformation is just being thrown out there without really any articles of authenticity to back it up research and data analysis and meta-analysis and peer reviews. These are things that you're looking for, um, to back up what someone is telling you online, because I'm gonna be the first one to tell you, okay, I'm gonna be honest with you. Chickens are fun. They're entertaining. They are a wonderful addition to any family's backyard. Whether you raise them as pets, you raise them for food and substance for your family. Chickens are not that easy. They are complicated. Their systems are really, really complicated and they are tough to a point. And then at the same time, their respiratory system and their reproductive system, it is very delicate. I am gonna dedicate this, uh, to my buddy Bo uh, I added this on to the ender because I had already recorded this. Uh, but Bo had passed away. We, we had an episode on heat stroke and how to keep your chickens cool. That's part of our summer series and well, that's what happened to Bo boat suffered a heat stroke. Uh, you can go listen to a video. I made about his, uh, what had happened to him. That's on our Instagram page. We just never know we do all the things that we think we are doing. Right? All the things that people tell us, all the things I even preached about doing right. And it still wasn't, it wasn't enough to save him. It did break my heart and I just wanna thank everyone for their sweet comments and messages and kindness. Uh, I know most of our listeners have probably experienced a loss or two, you know, just end of life. And, uh, Beau was taken way too young. He wasn't even a year old yet. And it just really, it hurt it hurt because I couldn't do anything to change it. I took him to the veterinarian. We did everything we could and I just couldn't save him. I had our veterinarian, uh, euthanize him for me and I brought him home and I buried him under a big, big Oak tree that is on the back of our property next to our barn, Ronald. I say it y'all thank you for listening. Uh, thank you for always being supportive. We appreciate you more than we could ever say. And if you found any value in this, we appreciated. If you would share this with a friend, leave us a review, uh, and just let us know your experience with vent glee. You can email us at whim of the wonder, hand.com. You can send me a direct message on Instagram, and you can also find information over on our blog, blog dot whim of the wonder, hand.com. And until next time always remember education fuels, compassion. The more we know the better we can take care of our feathered friends. I'm Mel and you the wonder.