How Poultry Keepers Diagnose Chicken Diseases by Looking at Chicken Droppings

Generally, normal chicken droppings are strip-shaped, with a layer of white urate covering the surface, and are moderate in firmness. Their color can vary depending on the type of feed, mostly grayish green or sauce yellow. If they are too hard or too thin, it is caused by insufficient or excessive drinking water. But excessive softness is due to too much bran and wheat in the feed. If chicken droppings show abnormalities in texture, quantity, shape and color, it may be caused by disease. Abnormal chicken droppings include the following types:

Flesh-red droppings: shaped like rotten meat, this is formed by shed intestinal mucosa. It is mostly seen in chickens suffering from coccidiosis, tapeworm disease, roundworm disease and during the recovery period of enteritis.

Bloody droppings: black or tea-black droppings are commonly seen in upper digestive tract bleeding; red or bright red droppings are mostly seen in lower digestive tract bleeding.

Yellow sulfur droppings: the surface of the droppings has a layer of yellow or pale yellow urine covering. That is because damage to the liver lobules affects bile excretion, causing bilirubin to enter the blood and be excreted through urine. It is mostly seen in typhlitis and hepatitis.

Green viscous foul-smelling droppings: the droppings appear dark green, which is caused by bile mixing with shed tissue cells from the intestinal tract, mostly seen in fowl cholera, Newcastle disease, laryngotracheitis, etc.

Thin droppings: the chicken's digestion is normal, but the droppings contain much water and are not well formed, mostly caused by a sudden increase in drinking water in hot weather, too much salt in the feed, mild Escherichia coli infection, or mildly toxic substances in the feed.

Rust-colored watery droppings: rusty-colored and watery, mixed with urate, and sometimes mixed with incompletely digested feed. This is caused by severe intestinal bleeding. It is mostly seen in diseases that cause digestive tract bleeding, such as early-stage Newcastle disease poisoning.

Milk-like droppings: milky white, watery and thin, like milk poured on the ground, mostly seen in mucosal congestion and mild enteritis.

White thin droppings: viscous, often sticking to the chicken's anus, mostly seen in pullorum disease.

White watery droppings: the droppings are watery and mixed with white urate particles. It is mostly seen in chickens with no appetite, paralysis and uremia. This is because there is no food in the digestive tract and the droppings are formed from urate.