Hey All, I have two ducklings about 3-4 weeks old. One of them is having what I think is diarrhea. It’s only 3-5 poops a day that look like this and this started 3 days ago so I’m getting concerned. They both seem healthy and happy otherwise. Any insight? Thanks!!
Yes, I let them play outside Saturday and they ate some grass, we don’t have any pesticides or anything. And Sunday they were given fresh peas mashed up. And that is all they’ve had.
That looks like cecal poop, which they only do 2-3 times a day. If the duckling is acting 100% normal and gaining weight I don't think you need to worry.
That looks like cecal poop, which they only do 2-3 times a day. If the duckling is acting 100% normal and gaining weight I don't think you need to worry.
That looks like cecal poop, which they only do 2-3 times a day. If the duckling is acting 100% normal and gaining weight I don't think you need to worry.
For those of us who have never seen the inside of a chicken, it turns out that a chicken’s anatomy is pretty darn interesting. I recently took a class where poultry anatomy was explained and although there are many interesting bits throughout a chicken’s digestive and reproductive systems, today I am going to concentrate on two tiny sacs that help with digestion.
Located at the at the ileo-colic junction (the end of the small intestine) and before the beginning of the large intestines are the cecal pouches. These little pouches or sacs are analogous to the cecum in mammals except that with chickens, there are two. (Makes sense, chickens proportionally eat a lot more fibrous material that needs to be broken down than mammals do.)"
So how do these sacs help chickens with their digestion? The main purpose of cecal pouches is to collect fibrous material from the small intestines. While this material is being held, the cecal reabsorbs as much water as possible, while at the same time fermenting and breaking down the coarse material that the chicken has eaten (twigs, fibrous materials.)
The cecal pouches then expel and empty that fermented, partially-dehydrated mess two to three times each day.
Here’s the tricky part and what you really need to know about cecal pouches. The droppings from the cecal appear much different than the normal intestinal poultry droppings. A regular normal chicken dropping is firm, green to brown in color, and had a bit of white urate deposit.
A normal cecal dropping, on the other hand, is a brown, soft, moist dropping with a strong odor. A dropping that sometimes causes some chicken owners alarm as they mistakenly think it is an indication of diarrhea and illness.
Thick, sticky, brown chicken droppings will occur on a daily basis. It’s important to identify these and recognize that they are normal dropping as a result of chicken’s having those cecal pouches."
