8 Types of Chicken Poop: How to Identify Your Chicken Health From its Poop

One of the best ways of identifying the health status of your chickens is by observing the nature of their poop. The color, texture, and appearance of blood on your chicken poop have a lot to say about your chicken’s health. So, to prevent the spread of diseases on your chicken farm, you need to observe their poop.

As a poultry farmer, you need to know what normal chicken poop should look like. Also, you need to know what different colors and textures of chicken poop mean for your birds.

In this guide, I will be walking you through different types of chicken poop and what they say about your chicken health. So, anytime you notice a difference in the color or texture of your chicken poop, you can quickly guess the situation. It could be a chicken disease that needs your immediate attention.

So, if you are ready for this, let’s get started.

What is chicken poop?

Chicken Poop is the faeces of chickens. It is also known as chicken droppings or chicken dung.

Many farmers collect and compost the chicken poop which they use as manure for their farms. Also, many people use chicken droppings to produce biogas which is used for cooking. There are other experiments where people use it to generate electricity for their farms.

But in addition to all these wonderful uses of chicken poop, it has so much to say about our chicken health as we will see below.

Types of chicken poop and what it says about chicken health

There are different types of chicken poop and each type can help you to identify the disease in your poultry farm. The things to look out for when observing the chicken droppings on your farm include;

• Color of the poop
• The texture of the poop: watery or firm.
• Blood stains on the chicken droppings.

With these three identifiers, you can almost accurately tell what is wrong with your chickens. 

Here are the different types of chicken droppings and what they mean for your chicken health.

1. Normal chicken faeces:

First and foremost, you need to know what normal chicken poop looks like. This will enable you to know when the poop of your chickens has changed. Chicken droppings are generally some shade of brown and fairly solid consistency, with a sort of fluffy white cap on top.

The firm brown part is faecal matter, wich is mostly partially digested food while the white part, on the other hand, is the urates/uric acid.

It is the same thing as what you would otherwise refer to as urine in another animal or human.

Other colors of a normal chicken can range from all shades of brown and tan, to green, yellow, or even black.

Besides color, normal chicken poop may vary depending on the chicken, diet, time of year, and even overall health.

2. Yellow and foamy chicken poop:

This type of chicken poop could be a result of your chickens eating too much of certain foods like corn and strawberries.

Also, this could be early signs of Coccidiosis, fowl typhoid, internal worm infestation, or kidney malfunction.

How to treat chickens that excrete yellow and foamy poop

Since these diseases are still in their early stages, now is a good time to administer an anti-cocci.

You can use drugs such as Amprolium, Embazine Forte, or Amprococ to enhance quick recovery from Coccidiosis infection.

If you like organic remedies, then you can use the bitter leaf herb to curb the effect of Coccidiosis on your farm.

For internal worms, you can administer Ivermectin to the birds.

Organic remedies for internal worms in chickens involve the use of garlic and pawpaw seeds.

3. Green chicken droppings:

When you notice green chicken droppings, it does not necessarily mean that your chickens are sick.

It may be because your chickens have been grazing and feeding on green grasses, herbs, and vegetables. 

In this case, the poop will still be fairly solid consistency, with the fluffy white cap on top like the normal poop.

On the contrary, if you manage an intensive poultry housing system where your chickens do not feed on green vegetables that should result in green poop, then something is wrong.

It could be that your chickens are down with a disease. 

Some possible diseases could be Internal worms, Marek’s disease, Avian flu, or Newcastle disease. 

Alternatively, it could be a result of starvation. 

Your chickens may starve when you are not available to feed them or probably because your chicken feed is finished.

If starvation is the case, then the greenish chicken poop will not be firm like the normal one.

How to treat chickens that excrete greenish poop

If the cause of the green chicken poop is a result of them eating green vegetables, then there is no need to worry.

Your chickens are perfectly fine.

However, if the green chicken poop is watery and it is not a result of their feed, then some treatment is required. 

If it is an internal worm infection, a good remedy is Ivermectin. 

Alternatively, you can use garlic and pawpaw seeds as organic relief for worm infection.

If it is a viral infection like Newcastle disease, then there is no cure for that.

Newcastle disease in chicken has no cure, but you can only manage the situation so that you don’t experience an outbreak.

To manage the situation, you need antibiotics and plenty of multivitamins.

This will help to bring your chickens back to good health.

But most importantly, you should always vaccinate your chickens against Newcastle and other viral diseases. 

This will prevent such diseases from affecting your farm.

4. Runny brown chicken poop:

This is usually a result of your birds eating foods high in liquid content.

It is very normal to see your chickens excrete this type of poop a few times a day.

So, there is nothing to worry about here.

However, a brown runny chicken poop could possibly be a sign of E.coli or infectious bronchitis.

If that is the case, then you must treat them immediately. 

How to treat birds that excrete runny brown chicken poop

To treat birds that excrete runny brown chicken droppings, you need to use very strong antibiotics. 

Some good examples would be oxytetracycline, erythromycin, and gentatylo.

Organically, you can use garlic to stop these infectious diseases from affecting your birds.

5. Black chicken droppings:

This could be a result of your chickens eating black or dark purple foods.

Probably, they’ve been out eating charcoal, blackberries, or black apples.

Another reason may be the presence of too much protein in your chicken feed.

For a brooding chicken, black poop may be a result of it not eating for a while.

It will drop a large dark watery poop.

If all of the above is not the case, then it could be that your chicken has internal bleeding.

The poop will usually be darker than that of a hungry brooding chicken. 

At this point, you have to administer some treatment. 

How to treat chickens that excrete black chicken poop

To take care of black chicken poop caused by excessive proteins in the chicken feed, you need to change the feed formula.

To cure internal bleeding, give the chicken more vitamins. 

6. All white or milky chicken poop:

When your chickens begin to drop this type of chicken poop, then it is the result of one of these 3 infections;

• Internal worms
• Pullorum (Bacillary white disease)
• Or gumboro disease.

This situation calls for immediate attention and treatment. 

How to treat chickens that excrete white or milky chicken poop

You can treat internal worms by giving your birds some dewormers like Ivermectin. 

Pullorum can be treated with effective antibiotics. 

If it is gumboro… (please, pray that it is not gumboro). The gumboro disease poses a serious threat to farmers and it is one of the causes of high death rates in poultry farms.

So, the best thing that you can do is to totally prevent it.

You can prevent the gumboro disease from affecting your poultry farm by vaccinating your chickens against the disease. 

7. Bloody chicken poop:

When there is actual blood on your chicken poop, then it could be that your chicken is infected with coccidiosis.

Coccidiosis is a serious parasitic disease that affects the intestine of chickens. 

The more damage on the intestine, the more blood that you will see in their poop.

Usually, a chicken with a severe case of Coccidiosis will not have the appetite to eat food.

That is because of the damage done to the intestine.

How to treat chickens that excrete blood-stained poop

To treat Coccidiosis, you can use Amprococ, Amprolium, Embazine Forte or Toltrazuril.

Also, you can use the bitter leaf herb to treat Coccidiosis as an organic remedy.

8. Clear or watery chicken poop:

This could be a result of too much water intake probably because of excessively hot weather.

It can also be a result of stress from long transportation or when the chickens are out of food for a long time.

Clear or watery chicken poop could be the outcome of eating lots of food that has high water content.

This type of food includes watermelon, iceberg lettuce, celery, or cucumbers.

Another reason for watery chicken poop could possibly be kidney damage from a high protein diet, infectious bronchitis, and other internal diseases.

How to treat chickens that excrete clear or watery poop

A good way to treat this issue is by giving your chickens a healthy dose of antibiotics. 

Also, you need to always include organic bodyguards, like garlic, in your chicken meals.

This will have to prevent this type of chicken poop.

Conclusion 

Now you can differentiate between what’s normal when it comes to chicken droppings and what’s not.

Hopefully, you’ll be able to detect signs of infections in your poultry farm before they result in an outbreak. 

Please, share this article with everyone you know so that they too can beware of these things.

Reference:

• Fresh Eggs Daily
• Guide Freak

• 
  Chick Heating: How to Keep Baby Chicks Warm All Day
• 
  List of Chicken Predators and How to Get Them Out of Your Chicken Coop.
• 
  How to Make Fodder for Chickens [Reduce Feed Cost]
• 
  How Do You Get Rid of Worms in Chickens?
• 
  Chicken Molting? Use These Helpful Tips as a Solution
• 
  Chicken Lifespan – How Long Does a Chicken Live?