I need some advice.....and some questions answered.....asap!!!

[Ghull00]

Hello....
My chicks have been fed with a high quality ACS chick crumb......and they are absolutely fine....they are 5 weeks old.....I regularly clean them out to stop cocci. and they have access to fresh grass throughout the daytime.....Just today, I found one poo in the run with a red little lump. They are all very friendly healthy and hyper......and they are surely not even old enough to have cocci.. There are definitely no other poos anything like this but could someone who's very into chicks help me.........The poo was not actually bloody, it just had a little red lump in it.....I hope its too early days for it to be cocci....!

 

[Ghull00]

They are all fine and there is no drowsiness or any refusal to eat/drink!...do you think its just a freak poo....perhaps from something it found on the floor....one of my older chickens did a funny poo a few months ago, but there is abasolutely nothing wrong with it now.

 

[azygous]

The chicks are old enough now to begin occasionally shedding intestinal lining which appears as tiny red clumps of matter in a poop pile. It's completely normal and to be expected.

 

[Ghull00]

so I really have nothing to worry about???

Thanks sooo soo much.....you have been v. helpful to me as you have with soo many others....
Just a quick question....could this happen to the others......coccidisosis is usually actual blood in the poo isn't it??

 

[azygous]

All chickens shed intestinal linings throughout their lives from time to time. It's a bit startling to see the red, fleshy bits in the poop, but once you've seen it, you'll remember what it is and not mistake it for blood.

Cocci doesn't always present with bloody stools. The blood occurs when the parasites have eaten away at the intestines and by that time, there's no mistaking it for anything else since your chickens will be very ill. Usually, you'll notice your chickens are behaving like they're sick before you'll see any blood.

Just be aware that cocci are everywhere, just as we have bacteria galore in us humans. It's when our chickens get rundown or the load of cocci becomes more than the chicken can deal with that they get sick from it.

Continue to keep things clean and dry and you won't have any problems with cocci. If you ever do, treatment is very, very safe and easy and effective. There really, really isn't anything to worry about.