Watery reddish brown poop - photo

[Susan49]

I just discovered this poop in my chicken run this morning. The liquid part is quite watery, a little foamy, and mixed with solids as you can see. Does anyone have an idea what this could be?

 

[casportpony]

My vet made a comment to me once about foamy poop being a sign of a protozoa. How old are your birds, how long have they been in that coop, any new birds or cat food?

-Kathy

 

[Susan49]

We got our first birds 9 months ago and the coop had not been used for almost a year before then. They were just at point of lay, but added some new ones 26 weeks old about a month ago. No cat food. They get layer pellets, a bit of scratch and plenty of free range.

 

[casportpony]

When I see poop like that the first thing I thing of is coccidiosis or worms. Coccidiosis is treated with amprolium (Corid, Amprol, etc.) and the best wormers to use would be Safeguard (fenbendazole) or Valbazen (albendazole), not Wazine (piperazine) as it only gets roundworms.

-Kathy

 

[Susan49]

OK thanks I just ordered some Corid last night as a matter of fact, can't get it locally so had to order online. I will treat for that first, as I've also noticed a few other birds with dirty bums in the past few days, and a couple of weeks ago we had a deathly ill bird that we nursed for two weeks. She made a full recovery, but she was one of the new ones and I wondered if coccidiosis was the culprit. That's why I wanted to get some Corid to keep on hand.

For worms, can I use ivermectic on chickens? I have that on hand. Would I see worms in the poop?

 

[casportpony]

OK thanks I just ordered some Corid last night as a matter of fact, can't get it locally so had to order online. I will treat for that first, as I've also noticed a few other birds with dirty bums in the past few days, and a couple of weeks ago we had a deathly ill bird that we nursed for two weeks. She made a full recovery, but she was one of the new ones and I wondered if coccidiosis was the culprit. That's why I wanted to get some Corid to keep on hand.

For worms, can I use ivermectic on chickens? I have that on hand. Would I see worms in the poop?

This study says that it's an ineffective poultry wormer:
Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2816174
Ivermectin as a bird anthelmintic--trials with naturally infected domestic fowl.

Oksanen A, Nikander S.
Abstract

To evaluate the use of ivermectin as a bird anthelmintic, 29 White Leghorn hens naturally infected with Ascaridia spp., Heterakis spp. and Capillaria spp. were treated with 0.2, 2 or 6 mg/kg intramuscularly or 0.2 or 0.8 mg/kg orally. Faecal samples were collected before treatment and at autopsy, 2, 6, or 16 days after treatment, when the intestines were also examined for helminths. None of the treatments gave satisfactory anthelmintic results.




There were also a couple of posts last week where people had done their own necropsies and cause of death was due to parasites, both of them had used ivermectin, so If I were you I would invest in Safeguard or Valbazen.

-Kathy

 

[Susan49]

OK thanks, good to know! Do you happen to know offhand the egg withholding period for Valbazenor Safeguard?