Hen with yellow runny poo!

[claire73]

Hi, thanks in anticipation of any help; I'm a new chicken owner (having only had my 5 girls for a few months). They are all healthy and active but one of them has yellow runny poo (looks like mustard!) Some days there is none in the coop (just the normal looking poos) and other days there is the yellow stuff. I let them out of the run today and watched them in the garden for a good 20 minutes and watched one of them drop this yellow runny stuff! She seems fine otherwise. Any ideas?

 

[Shan30]

Hello, sounds pretty normal. It's probably not just one bird either but all of them having ceacal poops. No biggie!

Here's a poop chart to show you the huge range of "normal"

http://pluckandfeather.com/chicken-poo-chart-graphic.html

 

[claire73]

Oh wow! Nice chart! Thanks for that. I was worried that it was something very wrong.
This is a fab place to get reassurance. Thanks again.

 

[Shan30]

No problem, it really hasn't been that long since I was freaking out and googling chicken pooh now I know their behaviour well enough that I trust that I will know if something is wrong.

Well enjoy your birds

 

[casportpony]

Oh wow! Nice chart! Thanks for that. I was worried that it was something very wrong.
This is a fab place to get reassurance. Thanks again.

I wouldn't trust that chart... Many are listed as normal , but I can assure that that not all of them are. Would be best to post a picture of the pooop.

-Kathy

 

[claire73]

Oh! Ok....will try and get one...but it looks like the mustard yellow poo under the caecal section. We've had really bad wet weather here for the last couple of weeks, so I'll take my phone out when there's a break in the rain to get a picture when I can. Thank you.

 

[casportpony]

Oh! Ok....will try and get one...but it looks like the mustard yellow poo under the caecal section. We've had really bad wet weather here for the last couple of weeks, so I'll take my phone out when there's a break in the rain to get a picture when I can. Thank you.

I had necropsies done on three with poop like this:

Cause of death was coccidiosis. I'm not saying that all birds with poop like that will have coccidiosis and not the foamy appearance, foam is never normal according to my vet.

-Kathy

 

[Shan30]

I had necropsies done on three with poop like this:

Cause of death was coccidiosis. I'm not saying that all birds with poop like that will have coccidiosis and not the foamy appearance, foam is never normal according to my vet. -Kathy

I'm definitely not saying that unusual looking poops are never a sign of an underlying health issue. Just in my personal experience their over all demeanour has been a better indicator and for my first 6 months I spent a lot of time examining healthy poop....And making my husband look at it too lol. If your worried you can always have a fecal test done.

 

[casportpony]

Let me put this another way... The only way the an author of a webpage like that could say that those poops are normal would be to have full necropsies done on the birds the poop came from. I'm no expert, but I have seen way more than my share of poop and I can say that anything of mine that has produced poop like that, or the poops with the intestinal lining, has had to be treated for worms, coccidiosis or blackhead. After treatment each bird started pooping what I call normal. According to my vet, foamy poop like the one pictured is a sign of a protozoal infection like coccidiosis or blackhead.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

And remember that it's possible to have false negative fecals. I guess what bothers me about that page and others like it is that people tend to believe everything they read, especially when they're just learning. Heck, I used to think those poops were normal, too, but after three years of caring for critically ill birds I now know better.


-Kathy