Now here’s something they don’t tell you about at chicken school: chickens and their dirty bums. No wonder: it’s not nice to deal with.
Poor old Barbara has been losing feathers on her undercarriage. All perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, except for the fact that it means she’s been left with little spikey feather ends coming out of her nether-regions.
It looked like one of those Bagatelle games where the marble drops down and bounces off all the pins. Only this time the pins were feather stubs and the marble… well, it wasn’t a marble. Every time she went to the loo it was getting spiked by the feathers, like an unappetising cheese and pineapple on sticks, and the poor thing was wading around with her legs wide open to stop it all rubbing.
Distasteful though it looked there was no sign that it was going to clear up on its own, or she was going to do anything about it (why would you when your only option is to peck it out with your beak), so reluctantly we agreed that we’d have to do it for her.
Really quite yuck, but surprisingly it didn’t smell nearly as much as we had expected. We held her over a bowl of warm water and wiped her with a sponge, then cut away the worst of the matted feathers and popped her back in the coop. She looked a lot happier. She immediately turned her head around and started preening her back end.
I think we have a happier hen now.
It wasn’t a pleasant job, and although we’ve kept the sponge in case of a repeat performance, we both really hope it won’t be necessary.
A little red, but at least she's clean
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Well, that was gross.
Thanks for the heads up–we are planning on getting chickens in the future and I had no idea this sort of thing could be a problem. It’s always good to know what you’re getting yourself into. 
Thank you for that. I inherited a rooster with a dirty bum that I really need to clean. I did crumble some of the “marbles” between my fingers (in gloves of course) and he seems happier, but it still looks messy. So I’ll try the warm water wash and see how I go.
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