Yellow runny chicken poop, 2 months or so..

[Al Capon]

1) What type of bird , age and weight (does the chicken seem or feel lighter or thinner than the others.)
Americauna/EE, 21-22 weeks old. Weight unknown. She has always been smaller than the other pullets, but otherwise healthy and active. Feels skinnier, like she's been losing a little weight.

2) What is the behavior, exactly.
Behavior is normal, acts just like the other pullets.

3) How long has the bird been exhibiting symptoms?
8 weeks or so.

4) Are other birds exhibiting the same symptoms?
No.

5) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.
None.
6) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.
Nothing happened as far as I know.

7) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.
Eats All Flock 18% and drinks water. This chicken LOVES to play in the water and that may explain why her poop is very watery. She probably takes in more water than the other pullets.

8) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc.
Very yellow and runny, like a broken egg. Except she hasn't started laying yet and has shown no signs of laying.

9) What has been the treatment you have administered so far?
5 days on Sulfadimethoxine in drinking water followed by worming with Wazine.

10 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?
Am currently working with a vet, but her problem remains.

11) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
Link to Poop Pics (notice dates and text)

12) Describe the housing/bedding in use
Bedding is pine pellets. Turned over for a couple weeks then exchanged for new.


When yellow poop was noticed in May, I tried worming with Safeguard with the "pea sized" dose. I have since learned that is probably way too little wormer and that effort was futile.

Consulted a vet, told him symptoms, he prescribed Sulfadimethoxine for 6 days. On day 5 it was apparent that the condition was unchanged and went back to the vet with the above pics and a stool sample.

Both Vets thought it looked like some type of roundworm in the pics, I gave him stool sample. He called, supposedly confirming roundworms with a float/microscope test and ordered Wazine.

I wormed the chickens on July 3rd with Wazine, (3 days later) today the poop is still yellow and watery.

Will worm again on July 13 with Valbazen to make sure there are no intestinal parasites.

Could it be that there hasn't been enough time for her system and poop to return to normal? Could the yellow poop be caused by something else?

Thoughts or suggestions.

 

[Eggcessive]

The bright yellow material in the poop is not normal. I cannot really say what is causing it, but some poops can be bright yellow from E.coli infection. In turkeys, it can happen with histomoniasis or blackhead disease. As long as she is acting normal, eating and drinking, I would keep an eye on her. Give her probiotics to help get her gut bacteria back to normal,and it wouldn’t hurt to give some vitamins for a few days since she has been on the sulfa antibiotics. @casportpony might be able to help more with the poop pictures. Here is an article to read:
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/whats-scoop-on-chicken-poop-digestive/

 

[dawg53]

Did the vet state exactly what type of roundworms? Chickens can get large roundworms, capillary worms, cecal worms and a host of other types of roundworms. Wazine only treats large roundworms.
The sulfadimethoxine is used to treat cocci and other bacterial infections but you shouldve seen some improvement by now if it were cocci etc.
I agree with Eggcessive that you could possibly be dealing with Blackhead disease.

You should be finished with your sulfadimethoxine treatment.
Get her started on the Valbazen, 1/2cc orally every other day for a total of 3 days in one weeks time. This will kill the cecal worms that are the host to the protozoa that causes Blackhead. The Valbazen will also treat other types of worms. I recommend that you worm the rest of your birds in your flock with the Valbazen also.

To treat the protozoa that causes Blackhead:
Order Metronidazole now. Dosage is one 250mg tablet per day for 5-7 days. You can give the Metronidazole in conjunction with the Valbazen if you wish.
After treating your hen is completed, give her plain white boiled rice mixed with buttermilk to eat for a couple days. Ensure the rice is cooled enough to eat, the chilled buttermilk will help cool it.
Buttermilk is a much better probiotic than yogurt and wont run out of her like yogurt, and the rice will help settle her digestive tract.

Here's a link where you can order Metronidazole without a script.
https://www.revivalanimal.com/product/fish-zole?sku=22154-475

 

[Al Capon]

Thanks for the help folks..

Did the vet state exactly what type of roundworms? Chickens can get large roundworms, capillary worms, cecal worms and a host of other types of roundworms. Wazine only treats large roundworms.
The sulfadimethoxine is used to treat cocci and other bacterial infections but you shouldve seen some improvement by now if it were cocci etc.
I agree with Eggcessive that you could possibly be dealing with Blackhead disease.

No, he didn't specify which roundworm. He took the sample and called me back a few hrs later, so I assume he did the the proper tests, but only he knows whether he did or didn't.

You should be finished with your sulfadimethoxine treatment.
Get her started on the Valbazen, 1/2cc orally every other day for a total of 3 days in one weeks time. This will kill the cecal worms that are the host to the protozoa that causes Blackhead. The Valbazen will also treat other types of worms. I recommend that you worm the rest of your birds in your flock with the Valbazen also.

So, Valbazen every other day for 3 doses, correct? I gave everybody the Wazine, and was planning on giving everybody else Valbazen as well.

To treat the protozoa that causes Blackhead:
Order Metronidazole now. Dosage is one 250mg tablet per day for 5-7 days. You can give the Metronidazole in conjunction with the Valbazen if you wish.
After treating your hen is completed, give her plain white boiled rice mixed with buttermilk to eat for a couple days. Ensure the rice is cooled enough to eat, the chilled buttermilk will help cool it.
Buttermilk is a much better probiotic than yogurt and wont run out of her like yogurt, and the rice will help settle her digestive tract.

Having never given a chicken a pill before, do you stuff it down their throat like you would a mammal? Since it's water soluble, do I mix it in some mash or yogurt? I wanna make sure I do it correctly.

 

[Al Capon]

Metronidazole ordered.

I forgot to mention that when I first saw this back in May, I did a complete round of Corid to hopefully wipe out any Cocci that might have been present, so between the Corid and the Sulfa, any Cocci she might have had should be gone, IMO.

 

[dawg53]

If the Metronidazole is to big for her to swallow, mix it in water and add the mixture into a small amount of feed for her to eat, not yogurt. Like I mentioned, yogurt has a tendency to pass quickly through their system. You dont want most of the medication passing out her rear end.

 

[Al Capon]

If the Metronidazole is to big for her to swallow, mix it in water and add the mixture into a small amount of feed for her to eat, not yogurt. Like I mentioned, yogurt has a tendency to pass quickly through their system. You dont want most of the medication passing out her rear end.

Thanks, I'll do that, she loves mash, thinks she's getting a real treat..

 

[Al Capon]

Order Metronidazole now. Dosage is one 250mg tablet per day for 5-7 days. You can give the Metronidazole in conjunction with the Valbazen if you wish.

Give her probiotics to help get her gut bacteria back to normal,and it wouldn’t hurt to give some vitamins for a few days since she has been on the sulfa antibiotics.

Alright, a new development that I want to run past you folks.

I've been doing exactly as ya'll prescribed. Since my original post I've give her 3 doses of Valbazen on the specified days, given her poultry vitamins and probiotics in her water and she's on day 5 of the Metronidazone.

There has been a little lessening of the yellow material in her poop, but it's still present and the poop is still watery.

They free-range, but their coop is on concrete and I lock them up at night. Every evening I clean the concrete and every morning I check the poop for abnormalities.

This morning there were 4 spots where she pooped since getting off the roost, 3 out of 4 of those poops had cherry pits in them for a total of 6 pits.

Now I don't give them cherries, but there's a few sour cherry trees on the property and the chickens eat them when they fall in the Spring. The cherries are small and the pits are about half the size of the ones you get in the store, no bigger than a pea. When they started eating them I made sure to check and see if the chickens were passing the pits. All seemed to be passing them fine in their poop and no other chicken seems to have had any issues.

I first noticed her yellow poop back in May, and there hasn't been any cherries available for probably 2 months, so she's been carrying these pits around for 2, possibly 3 months.

I'm not too familiar with chicken anatomy, but is it feasible that something other than the crop could have gotten blocked and caused her symptoms:

1) weight loss
2) slight lethargy
3) yellow poop
4) watery poop with seemingly undigested feed pellets in it

I've been feeling her crop because that was an early concern of mine. Her crop always expanded after she ate, felt like a sand bag and after eating, emptied and felt normal. Her crop never felt hard or full like she had any problems.

Is there any other place in the chicken that those cherry pits could have become lodged to cause a problem?

Could the remaining yellow stuff be infection or bile or something else related to the blockage?

I'll keep giving her the Metronidazone to hopefully clear up any infection that she might have had and I'll keep watching her. Will be interesting to see if she turns things around now that seemingly a "cork" has been removed from the bottle.

Thoughts?

 

[coach723]

The gizzard is the next place in line after the crop, and things can get hung up there. I don't know if a cherry pit is hard enough to pass through the gizzard without being ground up, but in your case it appears so. Cherry pits, like apple seeds, contain a substance that when metabolized becomes cyanide, so I've no idea how many it would take to poison a chicken, but I would prevent them from access to that in the future, better safe than sorry. Many stone fruit pits are the same, and can be toxic when raw.
Again, I've no idea how much is too much.
I think once you finish the metronidazole, you give her gut a bit of time to recover with probiotics, and if the problem persists I might try amoxicillin, I would not consider that yellow to be normal in any way. But if things are moving when they were not before, that is certainly a good sign.

 

[Al Capon]

The gizzard is the next place in line after the crop, and things can get hung up there. I don't know if a cherry pit is hard enough to pass through the gizzard without being ground up, but in your case it appears so. Cherry pits, like apple seeds, contain a substance that when metabolized becomes cyanide, so I've no idea how many it would take to poison a chicken, but I would prevent them from access to that in the future, better safe than sorry. Many stone fruit pits are the same, and can be toxic when raw.
Again, I've no idea how much is too much.
I think once you finish the metronidazole, you give her gut a bit of time to recover with probiotics, and if the problem persists I might try amoxicillin, I would not consider that yellow to be normal in any way. But if things are moving when they were not before, that is certainly a good sign.

Yeah, I'd always heard about the cyanide in the pits before, but they normally should spend such a short time in their gut, I didn't think it would matter much. Guess that "short time" notion is blown all to hell..

Those pits that she passed this morning looked pristine. They were clean of course, but didn't look like they have been ground on. The grit I've been feeding them is crushed granite. If those pits had been anywhere near the granite, I'd expect them to be scuffed up a bit. Makes me wonder if maybe they were hung up further down in the stomach or intestine area.

Thanks man.