Chickens are drinking dog pee - is this bad?

[Knock Kneed Hen]

Don't eat yellow eggs!!

 

[cobrien]

I can share 2 observations -

young chickens (<6months) seem much more adventurous when it comes to sampling things, over and over again, before they ultimately decide it tastes bad. When my girls were < 6 months, they constantly sampled my deer resistant plants, even devoured a few, but now they've realized they don't taste good and completely leave them alone.

Second, my chickens LOVE drinking runoff water on the ground when it rains or when I water plants, even when their clean waterer is readily available.

So I could imagine if your girls have the above 2 behaviors that they could find dog pee intriguing. I have the opposite problem...dogs eating chicken poo!

 

[Camelot Farms]

I think that this is only the 2nd time that I have ever used the 'ack' smiley... does that tell you anything?

 

[jennh]

Quote:

Jen

 

[underground chickenman]

Actually, urine from a healthy dog is sterile, just like your own. That doesn't mean it's not gross, it just means that urine does not contain pathogens--bacteria, viruses or fungi, at least not immediately out of the wizzer. It may pick up such nasties from the dog's skin or from the ground, and it is a good medium for bacteria growth once out of the dog, but generally speaking, drinking the urine off the ground probably does not pose any greater risk than drinking from a puddle, which they do all the time.

UGCM

 

[floridamel]

Thanks chickenman for the information! And thanks cobrien for posting your observations - it makes me feel like these chickens are *slightly* less weird than I thought!

 

[Siler]

Chickens can be some gross little creatures that's for sure. I thought mine were nasty by drinking/washing in the washing machine run-off(our house is old and when the washer and dryer were added the plumbing had to be added and it was easier to send it out into the yard).

A little off topic but imaqt55 my cat is prone to UTIs as well and we've never been able to figure it out until recently. Most flea topicals don't work on her and she is always carrying around 1 flea on her body pretty much and she's too overweight to reach her itchy and private spots so she uses her paw to do the itching and that's where she gets the infection. You may want to find out what may be causing this infection that you or your vet never thought about.

 

[AnnainMD]

Oh...MY...LORD. That is GROSS!!

I thought I couldn't laugh any harder until I read this line
Quote:

 

[QuailHollow]

Unless an infection is present, urine is sterile.

 

[buglit]

I think that a video posted to Youtube of this would vbe a great hit!! Sounds hilarous