Diarrhea 1/2 the time; brown or black; Acting Normal

[Henderson Hen House]

So my girls are all about 25 weeks old now, and they've had diarrhea (each about 1-2x/day) since I can remember. For the most part their poo is normal green w/white, but sometimes it is brown & runny OR BLACK & sticky. They've never once acted sick, and I've only used one type of chick feed and one type of layer feed with no weird stuff fed to them.

Is this dangerous? Or just annoying for clean up? I figured since they act totally fine (the first just started laying yesterday!), that it wasn't a big deal.

But I'm getting tired of trying to clean up nasty, stinking, sticky poop!!!

HELP!!

Thank you

 

[AKsmama]

Totally normal. It's called cecal poop and all chickens do it. I think I have read cecal poop happens every 8-10 poops. It's just annoying to clean up

 

[Carrie Lynn]

Sounds like cecal droppings....nasty, nasty stuff!

However, it is perfectly normal. Not the runs, it is a fermentation from the ceca which are found in the chicken's intestines.
Search ceca or cecal and read about it, perhaps that's what you are referring to.

To me, it is the only drawback to having chickens. I can take cleaning up chicken flickins', but the cecal dropping are disgusting!

 

[Henderson Hen House]

And this is why I love this site!! First time chicken owner and had never heard of Cecal poo!! Thank you so much and I will look it up pronto. Thanks again neighbors!!

 

[Lostbody]

I think that's why so many coop designs call for linoleum in the henhouse - makes it much easier to clean up the sticky mess.
And congrats on your first egg.