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Poultry farmers, who are seriously involved in farming, carefully monitor the condition of their pets. One of the important indicators is the quality of the litter. Diarrhea in chickens, regardless of consistency and color, should be alarming. Experienced owners are able to determine precisely by the litter what the birds are sick with and take measures to improve the herd. When the first symptoms appear, it is necessary to treat chickens.
Why do chickens get sick
Liquid stools are called diarrhea. There can be many reasons for its occurrence. In some cases, this is due to poor-quality feed, in others, the cause is serious infectious diseases. If in doubt, it is best to seek the help of specialists and do tests. After that, it is already possible to decide how to treat pets.
Diarrhea in chickens is a dangerous disease that leads to dehydration, intoxication, but, most importantly, reduces the protective functions of the body. If you do not give special preparations to chickens, then the entire flock of birds may die as a result.
How to evaluate a litter
A good owner will never wait for the hens to start vilifying. He daily monitors the feces of the bird and the condition of the litter.
Allocations in chickens of two types: day and night droppings:
- During the day, the stools of healthy adult hens and chicks look like elongated dark brown granules. They do not stick to the hand, they roll like plasticine. The presence of white deposits is quite natural. These are salts of uric acid. If the shape of the feces has changed, then the reason may be hypothermia or poor quality food.
- Night stools are called cecal. They are watery, brown, but not sticky. Such a feces from a chicken comes out in the morning. Allocations from a healthy bird should not contain gas bubbles, mucus, blood secretions.
The presence of diarrhea in laying hens is the easiest to control: if the eggs are clean, then the digestive system is working normally.
How to recognize diarrhea
Diarrhea in chickens can be recognized by characteristic signs. First of all, you need to monitor the litter. If liquid stools appear or the color of the feces has changed, you need to be concerned.
After diarrhea in a chicken, dirt will be noticeable on the cloaca. In addition, diarrhea leads to inflammation of the cloaca. In laying hens, feces stick to the eggs, and sometimes blood clots. At the first sign of sick birds, they are removed from the general herd to a separate room for observation and treatment. If measures are not taken in time, more than one bird will die.
You can understand that something is wrong with the chicken by its behavior. The presence of diarrhea in laying hens leads to lethargy, the birds are thirsty, but they refuse food.
Non-infectious causes
If the chicken has diarrhea, then you first need to find out for what reason it arose.
Subcooling
If the air temperature drops sharply, then the bird absorbs food worse. Because of this, a lot of fluid appears in the stool, or, as experts say, it becomes watery. But the color remains natural. In this case, no treatment is required.
Shock from a change of place
Any movement of a chicken to a new place of residence is associated with a stressful state, and it negatively affects the digestive process. In a chicken, diarrhea passes quickly after it adapts to new conditions.
Power change
When chickens are switched to a new diet, they become stressed, causing diarrhea. What to do in this case? First, they give the old food again, and gradually transfer to the new one so that the chicken’s stomach gets used to it.
Dirty water
If nipple drinkers are installed in the chicken coop, then diarrhea in the chicken does not occur if it is not infected. When water is in a common drinking bowl, and birds step into it, they can introduce pathogens. In this case, the disease of chickens can become massive, it will be difficult to stop it. Give your pets disinfected water and change it twice a day.
Poisoning
Diarrhea in chickens can provoke unsuitable feed. It is impossible to get rid of poisoning only by changing the feed. How to treat sick chickens in such a situation? To treat diarrhea, it is necessary to drink all birds (both sick and healthy for prevention) antibacterial drugs. They can be added to the mix.
Diarrhea caused by infections
Diarrhea often leads to a change in the color of the litter, and this is already dangerous. The color of the feces varies and most often the cause is an infection.
White diarrhea
This color of feces most often appears with pullorosis caused by salmonella. In a bird, not only the intestines are affected, but also the ovaries. White diarrhea seen in chickens can affect all organs, leading to death. Chickens are infected from sick individuals through litter and infected eggs.
Sick chickens can also be identified by external signs:
- the beak is constantly open, breathing is heavy;
- chickens are lethargic, almost do not move, sit ruffled;
- digestion is disturbed;
- laying hens stop laying eggs.
Chickens suffering from white diarrhea do not grow well, for the most part stand with their legs wide apart. The eyes are tightly closed. It is almost impossible to cure chickens from pullorosis, so they are slaughtered.
Yellow diarrhea
If the birds are kept in unfavorable conditions, or the cause is stress, then they may develop yellow diarrhea. In this case, it is enough to drink the chickens with potassium permanganate and put the room in order.
But if the cause of yellow diarrhea is an infection, and this is usually Gumboro’s disease, then you will have to conduct a study of feces or a dead bird. The veterinarian will prescribe the appropriate treatment.
Green in the garbage
If the contents of the litter are green, then you need to conduct a study, perhaps the diarrhea is caused by Paterellosis. If the tests are good, then the cause is non-infectious. Treatment will be prescribed by a doctor with special drugs.
The green color of the feces often appears in the first spring months, when the birds are transferred to pasture. Overeating fresh grass can provoke green diarrhea. In this case, you will not need medicines, you can get by with folk remedies. For example, drink sick chickens with a solution of potassium permanganate, infusion of chamomile or other herbs that have a tannic effect.
brown diarrhea
Liquid stools of this color are associated only with infection. Most often, chickens get sick in autumn and spring. The cause of infection is bedding, food, water.
When a bird develops brown diarrhea, the following symptoms appear:
- chickens go disheveled;
- become indifferent to food;
- mucus can be seen in liquid stools;
- birds lose activity, most often sit in a corner, spreading their wings and closing their eyes;
As a rule, brown diarrhea is caused by eimeriosis or coccidiosis. Veterinarians prescribe coccidostatics for the treatment of chickens. Since these diseases are serious, for their prevention, such drugs can also be given to the rest of the birds in order to prevent the disease of the herd.
Stools with blood
The reason for the appearance of blood in the liquid feces of chickens is coccidiosis. It is caused by the smallest microorganisms coccidia. They affect the digestive system of poultry. Diarrhea with blood most often affects young chicks up to two months of age.
Sick birds for the most part sit, do not approach the feeder. One of the symptoms is blanching of the scallops. First, blood appears in the stool, and later it becomes brown.
Common infections
Disease | Stool color | Cause |
Nucastle disease | Mucus is noticeable in brown litter. |
|
Colibacillosis | The stools are yellow in color, blood is often noticeable. | Damaged liver. |
Coccidiosis | Stool brown or chocolate. | Intestinal parasite invasion. |
Pasteurellosis | Green stools with mucus. |
|
Clostridiosis | In black diarrhea, gas bubbles are visible, a fetid odor is noted. |
|
Features of treatment
To rid chickens of diarrhea, treatment must be started immediately, otherwise the disease can lead to dehydration and death of the bird. At the initial stage of treatment, the cause is established, that is, they find out why the chickens snorted. If diarrhea is not caused by infections, you can use folk remedies.
Funds from the people
Since poultry has been bred for a long time, our ancestors invented remedies to rid chickens of diarrhea.
So, how to treat:
- As soon as liquid stools, including black ones, were noticed, clay is added to the drinking bowl to the water.
- Boil rice or oats and drink a thick liquid instead of water. Chickens are also given thin oatmeal.
- If there are pomegranate peels, then you can boil them and use them as an astringent, antibacterial agent.
- With green and dark brown diarrhea, it is useful to drink chamomile decoction to poultry.
Remedy for diarrhea from the chickens themselves:
Medication
Most often, antibacterial drugs are prescribed to treat diarrhea of various colors caused by infections:
- Biseptol;
- Enrofloxacin and Norfloxacin;
- Tetracycline and Biomycin.
If liquid Levomycetin is used as a medicine, then 4 ml of the drug is dissolved in a liter of boiled water.
In addition to the medicine, during treatment, chickens must be given vitamin complexes, for example: Trisulfon, Dolink, Hydrotriprim and others. Tablets are dissolved in water, and the solution is poured into a drinker. It is impossible to do without prebiotics in the process of treatment to consolidate the results: curdled milk, whey, Monosporin, Bifidumbacterin.
To summarize
In any case, when choosing drugs for the treatment of poultry, it is better to consult with specialists. They will help you figure out the dosage.
And in order for poultry not to get sick, it is necessary to create comfortable conditions for them, observe sanitary standards, and provide them with high-quality feed.