Watery diarrhea for past month.

[M_Clucker]

Hi all,

In need of suggestions. I have a 1 year old hen that has had constant watery diarrhea for the past month, that is causing poopy butt feathers. I've had to give her a bath a few times to clean the excessive debris. She is still eating and drinking normal, actively foraging during yard time, and laying eggs (4 per week). There is no pale comb, respiratory issues, or lethargy. The diarrhea is very watery with green to brown feces and white urates. There is no visible blood or worms upon inspection. I've monitored daily and clean the coop of poop every other day; I have a run with construction grade sand and I'm able to clean it easily with a kitty litter scooper. However, I suspect worms and have recently started treating the entire flock (Safeguard 10% Goat Dewormer_mixing 1 ounce into one cup of water into 15lbs of feed, repeating again in 10 days_per the ChickenChick website_we are currently on day 7 and still need to repeat). Also, I had recently gotten rid of my rooster about a month ago and now this particular hen is at the top of the pecking order. Could this be stress related? This particular girl is more prone to over indulgence and heat-stress.
The rest of my girls have normal solid poops. I feed the girls a mixture of Nature's Best Organic Pellets from Tractor Supply, black oil sunflower seeds (less than 10% of feed), Manna Pro Omega-3 booster (cup per 20lb of feed), and a light dusting of food grade DE. The girls also get apple cider vinegar in their drinking water (1Tbsp per gallon) and treats (fruit/veggie scraps, greek yogurt, dried mealworms, and scratch). I try to limit their treats to only 10% of their daily consumption. Every evening they get to free range in the yard and woods for several hours.
There are no vets in my area that specialize in poultry. Several livestock, just no poultry. I'm working on getting a picture of the fresh diarrhea itself and will post later. Here's a picture of my girl, Black Betty. Any suggestions and help is much appreciated!

 

[chicknmania]

If you have a regular vet for your four leg pets, the vet should do a fecal exam for you. If they say they don't do chickens, just tell them the poop and parasites are basically the same as any other animal. It might be coccidiosis. It's worth having a fecal done just to rule parasites out. More than once we've had one hen (usually a pullet) get a worm infestation, or coccidiosis, where the others do not. Also, we have a an old RIR hen that was given to us by someone else a couple of years ago. Once in a while she has persistent diarrhea where the others do not. It doesn't seem to affect her health any, and I've basically quit worrying about it. After you're done deworming, you might try some ZyfendA in their water for a week or so. I've found ZyfendA often times will clear up the diarrhea in our old hen. Now whenever we deworm, after they're done with the dewormer we usually run some vitamins in their water for a few days, followed by probiotics and then Zyfend A for a week or so. It's just what we do, it seems to keep them gut healthy for the most part. You can get ZyfendA in feed stores.

 

[chicknmania]

If she is acting healthy and just has the loose droppings, you can try poultry probiotics too.

 

[M_Clucker]

Hey @M_Clucker, just wondering how you're going with your treatment? I've had recent promising developments which I thought you may be interested in so wanted to see how you're doing.

I started using Zyfend A and the girls have beautiful red combs, but diarrhea is occasionally still present in two of my girls. I’ve thought about maybe giving fermented feed as a morning treat. Everyone is acting normal, red combs, laying eggs regularly, foraging, and drinking/eating. Some dirty fluffy butt feathers, but eggs come out clean.

 

[ChookieG]

I started using Zyfend A and the girls have beautiful red combs, but diarrhea is occasionally still present in two of my girls. I’ve thought about maybe giving fermented feed as a morning treat. Everyone is acting normal, red combs, laying eggs regularly, foraging, and drinking/eating. Some dirty fluffy butt feathers, but eggs come out clean.

That's great to know!

Regarding the diarrhea, just thought I'll share what I've observed so far with my sick girl. Remember how I said I was treating her with Turmeric paste? Well after two weeks I stopped the treatment as she wasn't getting any better. During this time, I did more research and suspected she may be suffering from Necrotic Enteritis (NE).. a disease very common in broiler chickens. I'm guessing it's because broilers are so heavily inbred that they have very weak immune systems. From what I've read, coccidiosis is often a side effect of NE as it's an opportunistic organism, often causing symptoms when the chicken's immune system is down/compromised. So I guess I should actually be addressing the NE first, not Cocci. Also like to add that the chickens I have were purchased from a breeder that I believe don't have very strong chickens as two other of my hens are also sick. My Roo is fine and he's from another breeder.

I didn't wanna run out and buy a bunch of antibiotics/treatments to treat her as I wanted something more natural. It's also because I'm not exactly sure what she's suffering from short of doing a fecal float test. I read a bunch of research articles citing oregano and thyme's broad spectrum potency against disease-causing bacteria, fungi, and parasites (including cocci). It doesn't induce resistance like many commercial treatment products. There are also several commercial poultry products based on oregano. So I went ahead and bought oregano and thyme essential oils.

I've been treating her with both for five days now. On day 3, she had one episode of watery diarrhea and on day 4, she was pooing normally... I've never been so excited about chicken poo when I saw that solid blob that morning! It was a beautiful sight!

Zyfend A seems like a nice product. Looks like it contains essential oils from lemon, grapefruit, fennel and anise. I don't know whether these will counteract the effects of oregano and thyme so if you're interested, you may wanna consider treating your two girls with oregano and thyme after your Zyfend A treatment ends. I'll give you the amount that I used if you're interested.

 

[PopoMyers]

That's great to know!

Regarding the diarrhea, just thought I'll share what I've observed so far with my sick girl. Remember how I said I was treating her with Turmeric paste? Well after two weeks I stopped the treatment as she wasn't getting any better. During this time, I did more research and suspected she may be suffering from Necrotic Enteritis (NE).. a disease very common in broiler chickens. I'm guessing it's because broilers are so heavily inbred that they have very weak immune systems. From what I've read, coccidiosis is often a side effect of NE as it's an opportunistic organism, often causing symptoms when the chicken's immune system is down/compromised. So I guess I should actually be addressing the NE first, not Cocci. Also like to add that the chickens I have were purchased from a breeder that I believe don't have very strong chickens as two other of my hens are also sick. My Roo is fine and he's from another breeder.

I didn't wanna run out and buy a bunch of antibiotics/treatments to treat her as I wanted something more natural. It's also because I'm not exactly sure what she's suffering from short of doing a fecal float test. I read a bunch of research articles citing oregano and thyme's broad spectrum potency against disease-causing bacteria, fungi, and parasites (including cocci). It doesn't induce resistance like many commercial treatment products. There are also several commercial poultry products based on oregano. So I went ahead and bought oregano and thyme essential oils.

I've been treating her with both for five days now. On day 3, she had one episode of watery diarrhea and on day 4, she was pooing normally... I've never been so excited about chicken poo when I saw that solid blob that morning! It was a beautiful sight!

Zyfend A seems like a nice product. Looks like it contains essential oils from lemon, grapefruit, fennel and anise. I don't know whether these will counteract the effects of oregano and thyme so if you're interested, you may wanna consider treating your two girls with oregano and thyme after your Zyfend A treatment ends. I'll give you the amount that I used if you're interested.

I have both essential oils, and poopy butts on some of the girls. How did you dose them, and for how long? TIA Do you think feeding them the fresh herbs would help as well?

 

[ChookieG]

I have both essential oils, and poopy butts on some of the girls. How did you dose them, and for how long? TIA Do you think feeding them the fresh herbs would help as well?

Hey @PopoMyers sorry for the late reply. I used 2 drops from a 10mL (10 cc) glass dropper (provided by the glass bottle) each of oregano and thyme oils (so a total of 4 drops) into 200mL (7 ounces/0.044 gal) carrier oil. The drop volumes can vary depending on the size of the dropper you use. The oil I used is rice bran oil just because it's what I use in my cooking but you can use any oil that's safe for chickens. I fed her 3 mL (3 ccs) medicated oil (she's about 3 kg/6.6 pounds) through a syringe per day for 2 weeks. However since you've got quite a large number of sick chickens you may wanna add it directly to their food. They don't like the taste of essential oils (EOs) so you can try masking it in their favourite food. Cat /dog wet food works well.

Please note though that although I saw a dramatic improvement after 3 days she reverted to watery diarrhoea again after 10 days. It's not as severe as before though and it only happens at night so you may want to give it to your chickens at a higher dose. Also the unfortunately thing with EOs is their chemical compounds will vary in potency depending on where the plants were grown and collected and how they were extracted. I would also err on the side of caution using EOs as they are very potent and you don't wanna cause any long-term liver damage to your chickens. It's really unfortunate as there's great potential in the application of EOs in poultry health. There are of course several commercial companies that have oregano-based products but they are exorbitantly expensive.

Fresh herbs can definitely be used. I just didn't have them available as it's the dormant season so I opted for EOs. The great thing about fresh plants is you can let your chickens eat them when they choose to. I'll be propagating some oregano and thyme in the warmer months and plant them on the edge of the chicken run so they can have a peck at them when they want to.

Hope that helps.

 

[PopoMyers]

Oh sorry now I get it! Well I have managed to get them to eat some ground-up oregano leaves that I salvaged before they went dormant. The oregano was in their scratch mixed with a tbspn of cat food.


Ooooo.. haven't had that before though I had a crippled girl for 2 months. Luckily she made a full recovery. Was a rather steep learning curve for me too as I had too many long sticks (foot long) in the run and she must have tripped over them - she loves to run and charge about for fun!

Hope your girls recovery soon!


Woohoo congratulations! It's really exciting to see your girls lay their first eggs!


Watch out for pine shavings. Have heard that they can be toxic to chickens too (see ref). I've got pine mulch in my coop so I'm scratching my head as to what to do with the remaining tonne still left in my shed.

Thanks, they have been laying since January and February, they have just graduated from pullet to hen. Semantics. Anyhow, I also read all the comments after the ref article, seems cedar is the toxic one. I am anxiously awaiting the delivery of bumblefoot treatment supplies so I can treat my girl(s). Glad your girl's crippled foot/leg healed up.

 

[M_Clucker]

If you have a regular vet for your four leg pets, the vet should do a fecal exam for you. If they say they don't do chickens, just tell them the poop and parasites are basically the same as any other animal. It might be coccidiosis. It's worth having a fecal done just to rule parasites out. More than once we've had one hen (usually a pullet) get a worm infestation, or coccidiosis, where the others do not. Also, we have a an old RIR hen that was given to us by someone else a couple of years ago. Once in a while she has persistent diarrhea where the others do not. It doesn't seem to affect her health any, and I've basically quit worrying about it. After you're done deworming, you might try some ZyfendA in their water for a week or so. I've found ZyfendA often times will clear up the diarrhea in our old hen. Now whenever we deworm, after they're done with the dewormer we usually run some vitamins in their water for a few days, followed by probiotics and then Zyfend A for a week or so. It's just what we do, it seems to keep them gut healthy for the most part. You can get ZyfendA in feed stores.

Do you think it would hurt if I treated for coccidiosis now while they are currently being dewormed? I've got the liquid CORID on hand. I had a few girls come down with it last fall and I was lucky enough to figure it out before they died. They were lethargic, hunched over, secluding themselves. Couldn't hurt right? I'll have to order the ZyfendA online, we only have Tractor Supply where I'm at and they don't seem to carry it, but MyPetChicken does online. Thanks!

 

[M_Clucker]

I never treat for both at the same time, just because I think it's a little hard on them....but you can. Just make sure to continue to give them the vit/ lytes and probiotics for a bit afterward, and the ZyfendA. Good luck, hope it helps!

Usually older birds don't get Coccidiosis but they might if they're a bit run down or stressed or there's some underlying condition

Thank you! I’ll go ahead and treat for both just in case, but I added a probiotic mix into their water and they’ll get yogurt daily this week. They should be happy campers lol.