Happy hens arrived last week, but one has runny stool. Any tips? X
- Thread starter fbo1980
- Start date
It's quite common for young pullets to have some kind of upset when coping with the stress of moving to a new home however nice it is. They face a change of food, a new environment, and probably have had a long lorry journey from wherever they were bred and raised, to the dealer you bought them from. All this stress can undermine their immune systems so they may show symptoms of tummy or breathing problems.
Does your pullet have droppings stuck to the feathers round her vent? If so then I would take photos and contact the place you got her from in a week's time if it hasn't cleared up. If she is otherwise bright and lively with clean eyes and nose, and just doing a few yellow runny ones this may actually be a normal caecal dropping which all hens do quite regularly as part of cleaning out their systems.
See this guide to poo types, which may be helpful. https://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0
Could you post a pic of the droppings and the pullet? (see help with this here; http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=11143
I've found that they often eat very little to start with and very few pellets. I make up a mix of pellets, sunflower seeds, mixed corn and mealworms, damp it with warm water and give it on a communal plate. Once they have eaten something nourishing they seem to perk up and settle down.
It's important to leave them alone and in peace to settle in by themselves. It's understandable that a new owner will want to get in there and handle them but as a prey species this adds to the stress. If you can just sit quietly in the run and watch them, they will get used to you and will gradually come to you and become calmer and tamer.
Lastly, when they have settled in and are eating well, its good to give the a course of flubenvet wormer before they start to lay. By 20 weeks they will have some worms and it will help them to tackle all the body changes of 'puberty' if they are not coping with worms.
Does your pullet have droppings stuck to the feathers round her vent? If so then I would take photos and contact the place you got her from in a week's time if it hasn't cleared up. If she is otherwise bright and lively with clean eyes and nose, and just doing a few yellow runny ones this may actually be a normal caecal dropping which all hens do quite regularly as part of cleaning out their systems.
See this guide to poo types, which may be helpful. https://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0
Could you post a pic of the droppings and the pullet? (see help with this here; http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=11143
I've found that they often eat very little to start with and very few pellets. I make up a mix of pellets, sunflower seeds, mixed corn and mealworms, damp it with warm water and give it on a communal plate. Once they have eaten something nourishing they seem to perk up and settle down.
It's important to leave them alone and in peace to settle in by themselves. It's understandable that a new owner will want to get in there and handle them but as a prey species this adds to the stress. If you can just sit quietly in the run and watch them, they will get used to you and will gradually come to you and become calmer and tamer.
Lastly, when they have settled in and are eating well, its good to give the a course of flubenvet wormer before they start to lay. By 20 weeks they will have some worms and it will help them to tackle all the body changes of 'puberty' if they are not coping with worms.
Thank you so much for the reply. Really helpful. She seems happy in herself. I will monitor the stool and see how she goes. I was wondering about worms. Their appetite for pellets hasn’t been great but in the afternoon they love a small handful of corn mix. They are picking up on the pellets now
Looks like a perfectly normal caecal poo to me. Messy but not worrying!
it’s so hard to know what’s normal with nothing to compare it to
Vermex is not effective against worms, it’s more of a tonic for those who want to spend their money on it. Personally I never use it. Healthy birds kept in clean conditions with suitable food never seem to need tonics.
The only effective treatment licensed for use in poultry that doesn’t require egg withdrawal is Flubenvet. You can buy pre-treated pellets, which are good if you have a lot of hens, but with a very small flock it’s best to get it in powder form and just mix it into their feed, which is easy to do in small amounts. If you buy a bag of treated pellets they most probably won’t finish the bag and it will go out of date before it’s time for another treatment, so will be wasted. The powder keeps until needed - a pot contains enough to treat 20 birds, so will last me a couple of years for my 4-5 girls. There are several posts about how to mix it on here.
Alternatively, you can get a worm count done by sending away droppings from each hen, and the results should tell you whether worming is actually necessary. This is recommended by many people because you reduce the risk of the birds becoming immune to the medicine if it’s given too frequently when not strictly necessary. It’s up to you. If you find out they have worms you then have to treat them anyway.
If your birds are kept in clean conditions and don’t have too much access to earthworms from free ranging, then worms won’t be a big problem, especially if you’ve never had hens in the garden before. I do always treat new pullets once they’re eating well enough to ingest a full dose, because they will have come from a breeder where there have been many generations of birds in close conditions, possibly for years, and so there’s a bigger chance they will arrive with their own quota of worms from a different biological environment.
All chickens do get worms and healthy birds will cope with a reasonable level without showing any adverse signs. But if you let it get out of hand, the worms multiply in their gut and take nourishment from the bird, resulting in low egg production and other health problems. I do mine twice a year, in September when the egg season is slowing down, especially on older birds who are in moult, and again in March to help them face the breeding/egg laying season.
If you look in the Pests and Predators section there is a lot about worms and how to feed Flubenvet. Eg this thread - you’ll see I changed my mind about how to do it after a few years!
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8714
And this thread gives different points of view; http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10075
Also see the Health section on the main Poultrykeeper site for more horrific details and pics. (You’re having a bit of a day of it with nasty pics, aren’t you? Sorry about that!)
https://poultrykeeper.com/?s=Worming+chickens
https://poultrykeeper.com/digestive-system-problems/
The only effective treatment licensed for use in poultry that doesn’t require egg withdrawal is Flubenvet. You can buy pre-treated pellets, which are good if you have a lot of hens, but with a very small flock it’s best to get it in powder form and just mix it into their feed, which is easy to do in small amounts. If you buy a bag of treated pellets they most probably won’t finish the bag and it will go out of date before it’s time for another treatment, so will be wasted. The powder keeps until needed - a pot contains enough to treat 20 birds, so will last me a couple of years for my 4-5 girls. There are several posts about how to mix it on here.
Alternatively, you can get a worm count done by sending away droppings from each hen, and the results should tell you whether worming is actually necessary. This is recommended by many people because you reduce the risk of the birds becoming immune to the medicine if it’s given too frequently when not strictly necessary. It’s up to you. If you find out they have worms you then have to treat them anyway.
If your birds are kept in clean conditions and don’t have too much access to earthworms from free ranging, then worms won’t be a big problem, especially if you’ve never had hens in the garden before. I do always treat new pullets once they’re eating well enough to ingest a full dose, because they will have come from a breeder where there have been many generations of birds in close conditions, possibly for years, and so there’s a bigger chance they will arrive with their own quota of worms from a different biological environment.
All chickens do get worms and healthy birds will cope with a reasonable level without showing any adverse signs. But if you let it get out of hand, the worms multiply in their gut and take nourishment from the bird, resulting in low egg production and other health problems. I do mine twice a year, in September when the egg season is slowing down, especially on older birds who are in moult, and again in March to help them face the breeding/egg laying season.
If you look in the Pests and Predators section there is a lot about worms and how to feed Flubenvet. Eg this thread - you’ll see I changed my mind about how to do it after a few years!
http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=8714
And this thread gives different points of view; http://poultrykeeperforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=10075
Also see the Health section on the main Poultrykeeper site for more horrific details and pics. (You’re having a bit of a day of it with nasty pics, aren’t you? Sorry about that!)
https://poultrykeeper.com/?s=Worming+chickens
https://poultrykeeper.com/digestive-system-problems/
bigyetiman
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Don't use it either, if the hens are kept clean and not crowded, fed properly they do just fine. we just worm regularly with Flubenvet and like Marigold always treat new girls.
as Marigold said perfectly normal caecal poo, you will be a real poo expert soon. Especially on picking up the one that someone always drops in front of the pop hole so everyone else has to walk in it :lol: :lol:
as Marigold said perfectly normal caecal poo, you will be a real poo expert soon. Especially on picking up the one that someone always drops in front of the pop hole so everyone else has to walk in it :lol: :lol:
The other favourite place for them to leave a caecal poo is on the doormat, right outside your door. At least you won't have that problem for 2 or 3 weeks...
Best not to let them out of their run to free range until they associate the rattling of a food tub with treats & they follow you as though you're the pied piper of Hameln... Then you can be confident that you can entice them back into the run again after you've let them out.
Best not to let them out of their run to free range until they associate the rattling of a food tub with treats & they follow you as though you're the pied piper of Hameln... Then you can be confident that you can entice them back into the run again after you've let them out.
