Chicken Poop Problems: The Scoop on Poop

Chicken Poop Problems: The Scoop on Poop
by Alexa Lehr | The Pioneer Chicks | October 10, 2023
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Yup, it’s a gross topic, but it is helpful to discuss chicken poop problems that you might encounter in the homestead flock. If you are a homesteader raising a flock of chickens, you should definitely be paying attention to your flock’s poop. The Scoop on Poop is my comprehensive guide to understanding what comes out the other end of a chicken besides an egg! It can help you recognize when your flock’s health might be suffering or solve the mystery of why you found such an abnormal dropping on the droppings board. Learning how to diagnosis your flock’s health based on their poops is a great way to daily keep an eye on the overall health of the homestead flock!

Chicken Poop Anatomy

Before we dive into the practical aspect of learning about your flock’s health based on their poop, you must first know the different parts of chicken poop. And yes, chicken poop does have different elements, no matter how gross it sounds.

Here are some major elements of chicken poop that you may recognize:

• Fecal Matter- The fecal matter is generally the largest part of a normal chicken poop. It tends to be brown, brownish green, or gray in color and is firm.
• Urates- The urates typically accompany the fecal matter and are seen as a white cap on the fecal matter.
• Cecal Matter- This kind of poop comes from the ceca and is basically leftover fermented food. It can be expelled by itself or in conjunction with fecal matter and urates. Cecal droppings often look sticky and are light brown or mustard color.
• Bile- Bile is often seen as green blobs in the poop and generally means something is wrong. It is often accompanied by excess urates.
• Sloughed Intestine- These are small red pieces found occasionally in chicken poop. They generally don’t mean anything significant and are just a result of the natural regeneration of the intestinal wall. Large pieces of tissue can mean a problem though.

Urates come from the kidneys. They are basically blood waste or urine salts.

Cecal droppings are produced by the ceca. This is where microflora is stored and a fermentation process occurs. These droppings usually get passed about twice a day and are a sign of a healthy chicken.

Bile comes from the intestines. When bile is seen in a chicken’s poop, it often means the chicken has stopped eating and there is not enough food present to dilute the bile in the intestines.

Types of Chicken Poop

The next part in understanding chicken poop is knowing what poops you can expect to see on a daily basis. There are different types of chicken poop that indicate different things. Knowing what poops are normal can help you do a quick health survey every morning when you clean up the droppings.

Including droppings boards in your chicken coop design is especially helpful for monitoring your flock’s health through their poop. Every morning you can see what kinds of droppings were passed over the night and do a mini flock-health analysis based on the droppings board.

Healthy Poop- normal

Normal chicken poops come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and color. Normal chicken poop consists of fecal matter capped by urates. A healthy chicken will pass about 12 of these a day. The shape and color of a normal poop depends a lot on what the chicken eats. The size of the poop will vary depending on the size of the chicken.

Healthy Poop- cecal

Cecal chicken poops are generally soft looking. They often remind me of caramel, which is a really bad analogy! These poops can also range in color from a mustard color to a dark brown. Cecal poops are usually passed twice a day from a healthy chicken.

Healthy Poop- broody

Broody poops are droppings deposited by hens who have gone broody. A broody hen will store her poop so she doesn’t soil her nest. When she leaves her nest she expels all the stored poop. This results in one massive, extremely stinky pile of poop! Trust me, you will know when you come across a broody poop! Broody poops can range from large, solid piles of chicken poop to something more watery, dark, and gross looking.

Unhealthy Poop- diarrhea

Diarrhea… in the chicken world this kind of poop comes in many, many different forms. Generally speaking, any poop that doesn’t fall into the above three categories is considered diarrhea. Diarrhea often has a loose consistency and will not contain the usual solid feces of a normal dropping. Two commons forms of diarrhea include urate poops and bile poops.

Urate poops are droppings that consist of almost all urates and no fecal matter, sometimes they will contain bile. These occur when urates are not properly metabolized in the kidneys. Urate poops are often a sign of decreased water consumption, excess protein or calcium, or diseases such as spirochetosis, articular gout, and infectious bronchitis.

Bile poops are poop containing bile from the intestines. These kinds of poops usually indicate a problem with the digestive system.

What to Look for in Chicken Poop

Now that you can recognize healthy and unhealthy types of poop, let’s learn what chicken poop can tell you about your flock’s health! While most chicken poop falls into one of the several types mentioned above, there can still be a wide variety within those different types.

There are three things to consider when examining chicken poop: the consistency, the contents, and the color of the chicken poop.

Consistency

Watery– A common deviation from the normal solid consistency of healthy chicken poop is watery chicken poop. Watery chicken poop can sometimes occur during the summer months when a chicken increases it’s water consumption. Stress can also cause more watery poop since it increases blood pressure. To determine if a watery poop is normal or not, look at its contents. Watery poop can also be caused by excess protein, kidney damage, or respiratory and intestinal diseases.

Sticky– Another poop consistency to look for is sticky poops. Sticky poops will cling to the feathers around the vent. When adult chickens have poop that sticks to their feathers it usually means something is wrong. Diseases that can cause major sticky poop issues include respiratory disease and coccidiosis. Dirty vent feathers can also be a sign of external parasites.

Foamy– Lastly, there is foamy poop. Foamy poop often indicates a respiratory disease. Excess protein in the diet can also cause poop to be foamy. Poop that is foamy and yellow in color can be an indicator of a bacterial disease in the intestines.

Content

When looking at healthy chicken poop, you probably won’t be able to tell what it has in it or what the chicken ate. Occasionally a chicken will pass a dropping that contains bits of rough forage or whole grains, which is normal. However, frequent occurrences of undigested food being seen in the poop could mean a digestive issue or it can be caused by old age.

When you see something strange in your flock’s poop, it usually indicates a health problem.

• Worms- finding worms in a chicken’s poop means the chicken probably has a worm overload, you may sometimes see worm eggs expelled as well
• Blood- this commonly indicates coccidiosis, which is an intestinal parasite
• Bile- seeing bile in a chicken’s poop means the chicken has not eaten and thus does not have anything to dilute the intestinal bile, it is a common indication of an intestinal problem

Color

Lastly, you should also examine the color of a chicken’s poop. The color of a chicken’s poop can be caused by what the chicken ate or it can mean a health problem.

Chicken’s that free-range a lot will have darker poop than confined chickens. If you feed your flock a purple cabbage as a treat, expect to find purple droppings in the morning! Excess yellow corn in the diet can cause orange droppings.

Common reoccurrences of certain colored poop often signals a health problem.

• hard and white- sour crop
• normal but green- lead poisoning
• yellow diarrhea- diseases causing septicemia or kidney issues

Chicken Poop Diagnosis

Not every unhealthy poop means something is wrong with your chickens. Chickens have this annoying habit of leaving behind a scary looking poop even if nothing is physically wrong. Sometimes an unhealthy poop is just a one time occurrence caused by stress, a slight digestive upset, or different feed and water consumption.

Unhealthy poops that keep reoccurring should be investigated. Different health issues will cause different kinds of unhealthy poops. The nice thing is that you can sometimes diagnosis a sick chicken based on their poop.

Digestive Issues

Nearly all digestive issues will cause diarrhea. Whether it be a minor digestive upset or deadly protozoa, the body will respond with non-normal poops.

Some foods, when eaten in excess, can cause diarrhea. Dairy products are a common food cause of diarrhea since chickens cannot naturally digest large quantities of lactose. Watery diarrhea can also occur if a chicken eats a lot of moisture laden fruits and vegetables or drinks a lot of water.

However, diarrhea can also be caused by some deadly diseases. The most common digestive issue causing diarrhea is coccidiosis, which is caused by a protozoa parasite that destroys the lining of the intestines.

Cryptosporidiosis, another protozoa parasite can also cause diarrhea. As can New Castle disease, which is a virus, and Paratyphoid, which is a bacteria. New Castle disease is often characterized by white, dark, or green diarrhea. Paratyphoid is usually characterized by watery diarrhea.

Digestive issues can also cause bile to be prevalent in the poop. Bile is an indication that either the bird has stopped eating or the food is not able to make it to the intestines to be digested. This can be caused by blockages, organ failure, parasites, or cancer.

Respiratory Issues

Surprisingly, respiratory issues can actually have an impact on the condition of a chicken’s poop. Common respiratory diseases are caused by bacteria, viruses, and fungus.

Of course, diarrhea will be the common indicator that something is wrong, but certain types of diarrhea can indicate a respiratory illness. Diarrhea that is green in color, watery and pasty, or watery and white can all be signs of a respiratory problem.

Common respiratory diseases include Infectious Bronchitis, Infectious Coryza, chronic respiratory disease, and Marek’s disease.

Parasites

A parasite overload will cause diarrhea. The easiest way to tell if diarrhea is caused by a parasite is to do a float test for internal parasites and their eggs. A severe parasite overload may present you with actual worms in the droppings. Gross!

Parasites can accompany any form of diarrhea, whether it be watery, semi-solid, urates, or a mixture. Parasites that affect the intestines will cause poops that reflect intestinal problems. Nodular tapeworms are notorious for causing diarrhea that is yellow and slimy. Poop that sticks to the vent issues is also sometimes a sign of internal parasites.

Even poop that doesn’t contain parasites can still indicate a parasite problem. Excess urates, green urates, and foamy poop can all indicate internal worms.

Organ Failure

Organ failure is a common cause of spontaneous death in chickens. Unhealthy poops can be signs leading up to a sudden death, often which the cause is the failure of an internal organ. Different types of diarrhea may indicate which organ is having problems functioning properly.

Liver and kidney failure are two of the most common organ failure for chickens. Liver failure is characterized by poop containing excess urates that are yellow or lime green. Kidney problems are characterized by diarrhea that is white and pasty or contains excess urates.

Cancer is a common cause of ovary failure. A hen who has cancer in her ovaries will often produce poop that is watery and dark green in color.

Reminder:

Occasional non-normal droppings are to be expected when raising a homestead flock. I have come across occasional poops laden with round worms or containing excess blood and none of my hens had any other problems leading up to or following those poops. It’s when you find repeated non-normal poops that you should start to be concerned.

When examining a non-normal poop, look at its consistency, contents, and color. Then, based off your observations and possibly the presence of other symptoms, try to make a diagnosis.

For more tips on caring for a sick chicken, check out Caring for a Sick Chicken and What to Feed Sick Chickens.

Now you probably know way more than ever thought you would want to know about chicken poop. I am still learning the value of reading my own flock’s poop! Every morning I can get a general idea of how healthy my flock is and what they have been eating when I clean up the droppings board. Knowing what to look for in chicken poop can help you monitor the health of your flock or diagnosis the ailment of a sick chicken. But don’t panic if you suddenly find a non-normal poop! Sometimes those are just one-time occurrences and no need for worry. Watch for consistently non-normal poops and other symptoms of illness in order to diagnosis a health issue in your flock.

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