Help! bloody poop, what to do?

[lapsarian]

Hi all,
I'm a new, proud chicken owner, with 14 beautiful, sweet hens that I got in the spring. a few of them have just started laying, but over the past three days, I've found what looks like bloody poop. I've only found it once a day, but the blood if red. No one in my flock seems sick; I've been on high alert and watching them carefully since I found the first blood 3 days ago... can this be normal? I just recently changed their food to pellets from crumbles and introduced crushed oyster shells after we got a couple very soft shelled eggs. I also can't figure out which hen it is... I've checked all their little bums (welcome to chickenhood

), and everyone looks healthy and clean... but I'm very, very worried. Can anyone with more experience help me out?

thanks!

 

[sammi]

you'll have to figure out which one, or ones are having the blood.
do they roost?
check where they sit, and in the morning, if there are bloody droppings under the roost..see which ones roost above..
do any eggs have blood? on the shells?

could be worms
could be cocci..

what all do you feed?
try making up a mix of layer feed, water cooked oatmeal, plain yogurt, cooked egg yolk..make crumbly or puffy..not soupy..
give some a few times a day for a week..along with regular layer feed as usual..

you might check out Avia Charge at McMurrays Hatchery.

 

[lapsarian]

Hi sammi,
thanks so much for the reply! my girls do roost and the last 2 nights I've put paper down, so I could see exactly what their poop looked like. yesterday morning, I found blood, but forgot to take note of who was where.

last night I put more paper down, took note of who was where, but this morn there wasn't any blood. this is a relief! I'm going to put paper down again tonight, so I'll see tomorrow... do you think it's good news that I didn't find any blood today, or should I still be concerned?

and no, no bloody eggs, just some weird looking, very thin-shelled ones.

I feed them layer pellets (changed recently from crumbles), some layer mash (I have 3 bantams), oyster shells, anything we would normally compost like vegetable parings and fruit rinds. they are also free roaming for part of the day as well, so they eat whatever is in our yard and woods.

thanks again!

 

[NYREDS]

Very unlikely it's Coccidiosis in grown birds. Occassional blood on the surface of a hen's stool is not a cause for concern. Laying eggs stretches things a bit & may tear the odd capillary. Think of it as chicken hemroids.