Diarrhea in chickens: causes and treatments

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Diseases of the gastrointestinal tract in birds are often accompanied by impaired stool. Diarrhea in chickens can occur for a variety of reasons, from stress to infection. In the latter case, the risk of infection of the entire livestock increases. To protect laying hens from death, you should understand the causes that cause diarrhea and be able to treat birds.

Why does diarrhea occur

Usually, diarrhea in chickens occurs as a result of infectious pathologies or when feeding poor-quality feed. Only a doctor can determine exactly what caused the disease. If you suspect an infection, you should be tested. After receiving the results, the treatment is corrected. In some cases, diarrhea may indicate infection of birds with worms.

The danger of the disease is that the birds do not digest food, and as a result, dehydration, intoxication occur, and the body's immune defenses decrease. Without treatment, the bird dies. Anyone can make a preliminary diagnosis. To do this, it is enough to see the color of the bowel movements.

Scorelitter quality

In order to recognize the occurrence of a problem in time, a daily assessment of the litter should be carried out. Normally, in chickens, it is of two types: intestinal and cecal. The first type is a discharge that can be observed throughout the day. In a he althy bird, the droppings are neatly formed in the form of elongated dark brown granules. It's not liquid. The upper part of the stool has a white coating. This is excreted from the body of s alt that enters the cloaca with urine and exits with feces. If the litter is out of shape, it may indicate a nutritional disorder, freezing laying hens, or an infection.

Cecal droppings are also called night droppings. It has a liquid consistency and leaves the bird once a day. Caecal feces are a derivative of the blind processes of the intestine, in which food is retained. By its consistency, the litter is liquid, has a dark brown tint, not sticky. Sometimes the litter may have a light shade. This suggests that food is retained in large quantities in the blind processes, causing fermentation. Because of this, bubbles are observed in the stool. If the color of the feces changes or bubbles are visible in it, then this indicates a violation of digestion.

How to recognize diarrhea

There are a number of tell-tale signs for diarrhea to look out for. Every day it is necessary to inspect the litter in the chicken coop, especially in the place where the birds sleep. This will allow you to see if the chickens have diarrhea. If liquid feces or litter of an unusual color is detected in the total mass, then this is a cause for concern.

To make sure there is a problem, the bird should be examined. Each chicken has a cloaca inspected. In those who are sick, the feather around the cloaca will be stained with stool. In laying hens, you can talk about diarrhea if there is sticky feces and blood on the egg shell. When diarrhea occurs in a chicken, the cloaca may stick together. As a result, bowel movements are difficult or impossible at all. Within a few days, the chick dies.

The behavior of the laying hen can speak about the violation of the nature of the feces. She may experience depression, lethargy, increased thirst. Birds begin to eat food poorly, keep away from other relatives. Such an individual needs to be monitored. If diarrhea is detected, treatment should be started immediately.

Common causes of diarrhea

What causes diarrhea in chickens? Most often, this condition is observed in violation of the diet of feeding and maintenance.

• Hypothermia. A decrease in temperature is the cause of poor digestibility of the feed. Because of this, the litter becomes watery, but its color does not change. This type of disorder usually resolves on its own and does not require any treatment.
• The stress of moving. Transporting chickens can be stressful, which in turn leads to indigestion. The result is diarrhea. As soon as the bird gets used to and gets used to the new conditions of detention, the feces will return to normal.
• Change in diet and violation of the feeding regimen. Changing the diet leads to stress, hence diarrhea. This is most often seen when buying a new bird.from farms where she was fed mixed fodder, and in the new farm she was given grain crops, mash, corn and other feeds. To make changes in the diet go unnoticed by the bird, it is recommended to gradually introduce new products into the laying menu. Over time, the amount of new food is adjusted to 100%.

• Poor quality water. In the presence of nipple drinkers, there are no problems with feces due to the consumption of low-quality water in chickens. If the bird drinks from a container, then the water in it may be contaminated. As a result, pathogenic microorganisms enter the body of the chicken with liquid, which cause diarrhea. To avoid this, water containers must be disinfected every three days, and the water is changed at least twice a day.
• Intestinal problems, poisoning. When chickens are fed low-quality feed, grains with mold, infections, including clostridia, can occur. As a rule, changing the feed does not improve the situation. To cope with the disease, the entire livestock is soldered with antibacterial drugs.

White diarrhea

If a chicken has white diarrhea, then this may indicate an infectious disease, pullorosis. It is caused by a simple bacterium from the genus Salmonella. When entering the body of a bird, the pathogen affects the intestines, ovaries. In chickens, all internal organs are affected. Infection of chickens occurs from sick birds that excrete the pathogen with droppings and carry infected eggs.

In addition to the occurrence of white diarrhea, chickens have the followingsymptoms:

• Easy breathing with open beak.
• Indigestion.
• Depressed state.
• Laying hens have reduced egg production.

If the disease affects the chicken, then he begins to lag behind in development, he can stand in the corner with his eyes closed and legs wide apart. It is unprofitable to treat this pathology, therefore, most often such chickens are sent for slaughter.

Yellow diarrhea

Under unfavorable housing conditions or as a result of infection, yellow diarrhea may appear in chickens. If the conditions of detention leave much to be desired, then it is urgent to fix it. In case of infection, Gumboro disease is suspected. To clarify the diagnosis, a laboratory study of fecal masses and an autopsy of the dead bird are carried out. Yellow diarrhea in chickens can occur as a result of stress. It can be observed after moving and not only. To remove this cause, various folk methods are used, the unfavorable factor is eliminated.

Green feces

The appearance of green diarrhea in chickens may indicate a malnutrition or an infection such as pasteurellosis. In the latter case, the feces are sent to the laboratory for analysis. Infection occurs from a sick chicken, mosquitoes and other blood-sucking insects, rodents. If the diagnosis is confirmed by laboratory tests, then treatment should be started as soon as possible. If the analysis is negative, then this indicates malnutrition. Often, green diarrhea is caused by spoiled, expired or too rough feed. In any case, treatment beginswith the use of activated carbon and the replacement of feed with a high-quality one.

Brown litter

If brown diarrhea occurs in laying hens, then this may indicate the penetration of pathogenic microorganisms into the body of the bird. Most often they penetrate the intestines in the autumn and spring periods. Infection occurs through bedding, feed, infected water.

Clinically brown diarrhea may present with the following symptoms:

• Laying feathers become ruffled.
• Appetite is completely absent or reduced. A chicken is indifferent to food when other birds pounce on it.
• Feces are liquid, brown, with impurities of mucus.

Infected birds often sit in one place with their eyes closed. To clarify the diagnosis, conduct a laboratory examination. Brown stools can be the cause of eimeriosis or coccidiosis in chickens. Coccidostatics are used to treat this pathology. Also, this group of drugs is used to prevent the disease. Knowing how to treat brown diarrhea in chickens can prevent infection of the entire chicken coop.

Diarrhea with blood

Diarrhea in chickens with blood impurities is observed with coccidiosis. The disease is caused by the simplest microorganisms - coccidia, which affect the digestive tract. Usually, feces with blood impurities are observed in young animals under the age of two months. Infection occurs through food that contains a pathogenic microorganism. With the development of the disease, the chicks become lethargic, refuse to feed. They are immobilescallops fade. Chicken droppings are liquid, it may contain blood, mucus. The color of the feces changes - it becomes brown. An admixture of blood in the stool may indicate an injury to the lower intestine or cloaca.

Diarrhea treatment

Diarrhea is treated in several stages. At first, it is necessary to eliminate the cause that led to the violation of the characteristics of feces. Then a method of treatment for diarrhea is selected. Antibiotics are usually used as most of the infections that cause diarrhea are caused by pathogenic bacteria.

Antibiotics are given to the bird with food or water for five days. One of the most commonly used drugs is Biseptol. The price of the tablet depends on the packaging. The dosage is 30 to 50 mg per kilogram of bird weight. When dissolved in water, one tablet is enough for ten to twelve individuals.

You can use other drugs for diarrhea in chickens. How to treat with other remedies, and which ones are best used to treat diarrhea in poultry?

• Preparations "Enrofloxacin", "Norfloxacin" are used at the rate of 10 mg per kilogram of weight. When using solutions of these drugs, one milliliter is taken and dissolved in a liter of water.
• "Tetracycline", "Biomycin" is given at a dose of 10 mg per adult. For chickens, the dosage is half as much.
• Instructions for using the Levomycetin tablet allows you to use the drug in chickens. The dosage for poultry is 4 ml per liter of water.

Required for treatmentinclude vitamin complexes. It is best to dissolve the tablets in water or add aqueous solutions to it, such as Trisulfon, Dolink, Hydrotriprim, Aquaprim. To restore the intestinal microflora, prebiotics are given to the bird. It can be curdled milk, whey or Colibacterin, Monosporin, Bifidumbacterin.

The most common drugs

For the treatment of chickens, Biseptol tablets are most often used. The price for them is low. It is only about 50 rubles. Levomycetin tablets are also often used. Instructions for use states that this antibiotic has a wide spectrum of action and is active against most types of pathogenic microorganisms.

In conclusion, it is worth noting that a daily inspection of the litter, daily litter of chickens will allow you to see the pathology in a timely manner and cure the laying hen. And in order not to face diarrhea, it is necessary to change the water in time, feed the birds only with high-quality feed and monitor their conditions of detention.