Chicken Poo Chart (graphic)

Categories: Chickens , Urban Farming 101 , Urban Livestock | 7 Comments Grody but pragmatic. It is necessary to know what normal and abnormal waste looks like from your birds. To this end, the Poultry Page Forum has created an online guide to poultry feces. Great job PPF! You can view what they have created thus far but be forewarned, its not pretty. Normal

Picture taken by Catsmuvva These last three pictures have shed intestinal lining in them quite normal, not a cause for concern. Coral coloured Urates

These are frequently deposited overnight and are quite normal

Oily and Foamy

The range of Normal is huge :shock:

Ceacal

These are produced from the caecum of the chicken and are mustard to dark brown froth. They are expelled every 8 to 10 droppings. Fly Maggots

(picture curtesy of Vember) Flies will lay their eggs on moist chicken poo and in warm weather they will very quickly hatch into small maggots. Watery

Watery droppings can be produced by hens which are too hot. It can be a way for them to cool down by drinking a lot and losing some of their heat in frequent wet droppings. It can also be a sign that the hens are not eating enough too. Abnormal poos

Coccidiosis produces blood in faeces.

The hen who produced this specimen was an older bird who became very thirsty. She is producing a large amount of watery urates the cause of which is unknown, but could possibly be a kidney problem.

The hen who produced this specimen was about 25 weeks old. She went off her food and ate so little she became underweight. She held her tail down and was tired. She may have had worms and/or egg peritonitis.

Worms

picture taken by smiler43

picture taken by Lindeggs

Sulphur yellow, foamy dropping can bea sign of Blackhead (Histamonosis) which is caused by a protozoan parasite infecting the gut. It is however rare in back yard hens ! This picture was taken after 2 days treatment with flubenvet. The worms are probably Ascaridia galli, they dont cause much harm to the birds unless they are present in large numbers. It is not unkown for them to enter the reproductive tract from the digestive tract via the vent and be found inside an egg :shock:

7 Comments
1. sara

It sounds danged silly, three years into raising chickens, but that rainbow of the many stripes of chicken poo has saved my sanity a bunch of times. The ceacal in particularly is off-putting. Especially when the flock decides theyll be plopping those out all at once. I had to feed them Purina Layena because we couldnt get the organic awhile back, I think back

in September? and when I let them all out for free swim to go scratching for worms, everyone was depositing these banana slug-looking things as soon as they hit the grass.
November 26th, 2011 at 12:23 am

2. Chicken Poop, All You Need To Know | The Hedgecombers

[...] on over to Pluck & Feather and see this incredible chart, youll be amazed at what is considered normal. Spread the [...]
February 5th, 2012 at 10:20 am

3. Janie

This is the most useful post for any chicken keepers ever! Good work ;o)
February 5th, 2012 at 1:34 pm

4. The Story of Sick Chicken - -

[...] figure out what was wrong. While her droppings were runny, they didnt really seem out of the norm (warning: grapic). I picked her up, which she wasnt very pleased with, to man handle her. I [...]
February 11th, 2012 at 7:51 pm

5. Chrissy Carroll

I was confident Id passed poo analysis 101 with flying colours after having my 3 children, but since getting our chickens, Ive realised another poo study is essential! Its fascinating to know that they poo that caecal stuff and its normal, its fortunate that its normal, but unfortunate that it looks soooo grossssss!! Thanks so much for this poo chart soo very helpful.
May 12th, 2012 at 5:37 am

6. Myra

With my new small flock I dont want to miss any sign of sickness, I sales the local feed merchant about worminess and he didnt know. Now I can use the chart to compare.
August 11th, 2012 at 2:49 pm

7. Carol Rodgers

We are new to keeping chickens in our back garden and when I saw a couple of my chickens having runny yellow poo, I got myself worked up that we had done something wrong with the feeding or something to cause them to be ill. I am so pleased to find this poo chart and now know that their poo is quite normal. Thank you sooo much it has been very helpful!!