At a poultry farm, if you ask the staff about chicken droppings, they will know what normal droppings look like. So, when you see abnormal droppings, such as green, yellow, soy-sauce-colored, or white droppings, this suggests that the chickens may already have a disease. In this situation, if you have basic diagnostic skills, you can take preventive or treatment measures in advance to avoid a widespread outbreak in the flock and major losses.
Chickens eat and ingest feed. The residue left after the feed is digested and absorbed in the digestive tract mixes in the cloaca with urine excreted by the kidneys, forming chicken droppings. Abnormal droppings are signs of disease. Therefore, attentive poultry farmers who can recognize poultry diseases and take action early through detection, prevention, and treatment can reduce treatment costs. Normal chicken droppings are cylindrical or spiral in shape, larger at the bottom and smaller at the top, and are solid, bluish-gray, gray, or grayish-brown, with a white cap at the top.
The white cap in the droppings consists of urates and accounts for about 1/3. Urates are a product of protein metabolism in the body. Since a chicken's urinary tract opens into the cloaca, urates are excreted by the kidneys and coat the droppings; they also indicate the level of protein feed supplied and absorbed by the chicken. Normal droppings have only a mild odor. This odor is determined by substances produced during food metabolism, such as indole, skatole, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. The color of chicken droppings is determined by stercobilin.
After a night's rest, the first droppings a chicken passes each morning are pasty and yellow-brown or dark brown. This is normal and is the excretion of cecal droppings. Newly hatched chicks that have not yet eaten pass meconium, a thin white or dark green liquid. When attentive poultry staff observe changes in chicken droppings, these are often an important sign that the flock may be about to become ill. An analysis of the color, shape, and smell of the droppings can provide an initial indication of the flock's health and the type of disease.
Red chicken droppings
When chickens in a flock pass red droppings, the most common cause is coccidiosis. In the early stages of acute cecal hepatitis in chicks, droppings may contain blood. In the late stages of leucocytozoonosis caused by Leucocytozoon caulleryi, droppings may contain fresh blood. Chickens with coccidiosis, tapeworms, roundworms, or recovering from enteritis may also have bloody droppings, which are meat-red, like rotten meat. In addition, poisoning by inorganic or organic toxins can cause intestinal bleeding and bloody droppings. Necrotic enteritis, Newcastle disease, and poisoning from moldy corn can also cause blood in chicken droppings.
The shape of the droppings can also help predict certain poultry diseases. For example, droppings shaped like strips with threads of beef may occur during the first-generation schizogony phase of coccidiosis (small-intestinal coccidiosis). Orange-red droppings that do not hold their shape after being passed are often seen with feed passage and enteritis. Droppings resembling “tomato skins or carrot strips” may occur with small-intestinal coccidiosis or enterotoxemia syndrome. “Fresh-blood-like” droppings are more commonly seen with cecal coccidiosis. Black droppings that are dark red, black, or tea-black may indicate bleeding in the upper digestive tract.
If the feces are red or bright red, this is commonly seen with lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Bleeding from the stomach above, such as with gastric ulcers, appears tar-black; bleeding from the duodenum appears tea-brown; bleeding from the ileum onward appears flesh-red; bleeding from the cecum appears purplish-brown; and bleeding from the rectum appears bright red. If the feces are rusty, watery, and mixed with urates, this is commonly seen with severe gastrointestinal bleeding caused by Newcastle disease, early-stage influenza, poisoning, and other conditions. In addition, gizzard erosion caused by poisoning from rotten fish meal can also result in black feces.
White Chicken Droppings
When your flock produces white droppings, this is usually due to one of the following causes. First, the chickens may have kidney problems. After kidney lesions occur, the white droppings passed are like “white limewater.” This can indicate possible diseases such as renal infectious bronchitis, bursal disease, mold poisoning, gout, or Newcastle disease in chicks. These viral and metabolic diseases can seriously damage the kidneys, resulting in “white limewater” droppings.
Second, the chickens may have intestinal problems. When the intestines are unhealthy, they often pass droppings that look like “white paint or white milk.” Third, laying hens may have salpingitis. Hens with salpingitis often pass “white egg-white-like droppings.” This is because salpingitis can cause swelling, congestion, and bleeding of the oviductal mucosa, increasing inflammatory secretions and disrupting oviduct function, which in turn causes egg-white secretion to become uncontrolled. Over time, it passes through the rectum and becomes loose, white, egg-white-like droppings.
Fourth, there are several other conditions that can also cause white droppings. For example, when infectious laryngotracheitis, influenza, or variant infectious bronchitis occurs on its own, the main clinical sign may also be white droppings. Yellowish-white or grayish-white, mushy, shapeless droppings may indicate pullorum disease or fowl cholera. In pullorum disease, sick chickens often pass sticky, lime-like droppings that adhere around the vent and make defecation difficult. In fowl cholera, sick chickens often have severe diarrhea and pass grayish-white droppings.
Also, chicken droppings that are white or yellowish-white and watery, and contain white urate granules, may indicate infectious bursal disease; this can also be seen in chickens with loss of appetite, paralysis, or uremia. White, watery diarrhea may be caused by inclusion body hepatitis, chicken paratyphoid, egg drop syndrome, or Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection. Milky-white, milk-like droppings may be associated with mucosal congestion, mild enteritis, or vibrionic hepatitis. Finally, white, rice-water-like diarrhea may indicate kidney enlargement in broilers or enteritis in laying hens.
Green Chicken Droppings
The green color of chicken droppings comes from biliverdin in bile and green foods. The level of glucuronyl transferase in the chicken liver is very low, and there is little biliverdin reductase. Therefore, bile pigments in bile consist mainly of biliverdin and a small amount of bilirubin. When biliverdin is excreted, the droppings appear green. All factors that promote biliverdin production and accelerate its excretion contribute to the formation of green droppings; this excludes free-range and ecological chickens that eat vegetables and other green foods.
Green droppings may be associated with several causes. First, chickens may be infected with bacteria or viruses. An excessive dosage of medication, or poisoning due to other causes, may place too much strain on the liver’s detoxification function. This can impair bile reabsorption by the gallbladder, causing bile to stain the droppings green. Second, stomach peristalsis in chickens may be abnormally increased. For example: the bird becomes ill → loses its appetite completely → less food in the digestive tract → increased stomach peristalsis → increased bile secretion → excess bile stains the droppings green.
The course of an illness can also be assessed by examining the droppings. For example, after vaccination according to the immunization schedule, during the vaccine-shedding period, chicken droppings may be pale green and formed into strips, with a normal interior and green exterior. In the early stage of a viral disease in chickens, droppings may be pale green or yellow-green and formed when they hit the ground; both the inside and outside are green. In the middle stage of a viral disease, droppings are dark green, unformed when they hit the ground, and green throughout. If a chicken is in the late stage of a viral disease, or has been infected with a highly virulent strain, it may pass loose droppings that are leek-leaf green.
In addition to color, the consistency of the droppings can also indicate some problems. For example, blackish-green loose droppings in chickens may indicate acute hemorrhagic inflammation of the digestive tract, inflammation of the liver and gallbladder, and increased bile secretion, which darkens the droppings. Inflammatory secretions and sloughed intestinal mucosa make the droppings sticky. Such droppings are often seen in chronic Newcastle disease, avian influenza, fowlpox, and colibacillosis. White-comb disease can also cause flocks to pass loose, dark-green droppings resembling spinach leaves.
If chickens pass blackish-green hard droppings, this indicates that lesions are present not only in the digestive tract but also that there are inflammatory changes in the urinary system. For example, when the body temperature is high, protein metabolism increases, leading to increased urates. The relatively hard droppings make it difficult for urine to adhere, resulting in yellow-green fecal lumps. Such droppings are often seen in acute Newcastle disease. The main causes of these droppings are: ① stress, such as injections, beak trimming, and moving between groups; ② an imbalance in the microbial flora, such as prolonged use of medication to treat a disease or frequent use of Western medicines to prevent disease.
Yellow Chicken Droppings
Yellow droppings in chickens may occur in several situations. First, egg-yolk-colored droppings are commonly seen in salmonellosis. Second, deep-yellow, round droppings are often caused by a high fever due to an infectious disease, such as infectious coryza. Third, sulfur-like loose droppings are commonly seen in the early stages of small intestinal coccidiosis, cecal hepatitis, and necrotic enteritis. Fourth, pale-yellow loose droppings are commonly seen in intestinal diseases; they may contain foam and be unformed, as in enteritis and colibacillosis.