Granular looking poop in pan under roost

[Chicky009]

Hi, looking for some help on understanding why our chickens' poop looks like this after being on roost all night. They have normal appearing poop during the day while free ranging. I have 7 adult chickens and four 21 week old chickens. I use PDZand diatomaceous earth in the pans underneath the roosts. 3 of the young chickens still aren't roosting at night. They would rather sit in the pan. I try to put them on the roost in the dark, but don't think they are staying up there. I say all of that because someone mentioned to me that it looks like chickens scratching through the poop to make it look like this. I just want to make sure there isn't anything wrong. I am hoping someone has seen this before. The white seen in the pictures is PDZ. I will also add that this is fairly new over the past month. Thank you to anyone that can help.

 

[Tookie]

Welcome to BYC!

I think it could be looser stools, nothing looks of concern to me.
I would just monitor and make sure everyone is acting fine.

 

[Chicky009]

Thank you. I did kind of wonder if it is just something diet related that could cause this. They all seem to act fine. Will keep an eye on them.

 

[Chicky009]

I wanted to check back in about the coffee granule looking chicken poop. If it is intact loose stool, how long should it last. I am in such a quandary. We haven't been getting the normal amount of eggs for a while, but still everyone is acting very normal. They look normal too. We introduced 4 chicks in the summer slowly, so their routine was thrown off a bit. Last night I decided to put feed bags underneath their roost to truly see what the droppings look like without PDZ or diatomaceous earth mixed in. I also documented who was where on the roost. There was normal appearing droppings this morning, but still a fair amount of the "granules". I am including more pictures with some close up too.

 

[Tookie]

I wanted to check back in about the coffee granule looking chicken poop. If it is intact loose stool, how long should it last. I am in such a quandary. We haven't been getting the normal amount of eggs for a while, but still everyone is acting very normal. They look normal too. We introduced 4 chicks in the summer slowly, so their routine was thrown off a bit. Last night I decided to put feed bags underneath their roost to truly see what the droppings look like without PDZ or diatomaceous earth mixed in. I also documented who was where on the roost. There was normal appearing droppings this morning, but still a fair amount of the "granules". I am including more pictures with some close up too.View attachment 3654737

I'm really not sure why their droppings are like that.
But now that I think about it, I think I've had droppings like that before.
Maybe its something with the PDZ and DE??

 

[Chicky009]

I'm really not sure why their droppings are like that.
But now that I think about it, I think I've had droppings like that before.
Maybe its something with the PDZ and DE??

These last pictures didn't have any PDZ or DE in with the droppings. I cannot find any pics on line that show droppings like this...it's mind boggling. Thank you for responding.

 

[aart]

Last night I decided to put feed bags underneath their roost to truly see what the droppings look like without PDZ or diatomaceous earth mixed in.

Good move.
Not sure what it is tho.

What all and how exactly do you feed them?

 

[Chicky009]

They eat Nutrena Naturewise chicken feed. We just switched them off of the grower feed back to layer feed since our chicks were of age to be on layer feed. They do get Sunflower seeds occasionally and meal worms sometimes. They have access to herbs. I also give them cucumbers, strawberries and bluberries from time to time. I supplement probiotic powder and brewers yeast in their feed. Since we had ducklings with the chicks, we also had oats in the feed.

 

[Chicky009]

They eat from a hanging feeder and have access all day, but I free range them all day.