Blue poo?

[warrenlady]

hello,
when I cleaned out the chickens' bedroom (sorry, nestboxes/ indoor area) this morning I found some very bright blue poo - almost a peacock blue shade. There was probably 2 or 3 poos' worth. I'm guessing it came from one chicken (we have 3). Texture was firm and I haven't noticed any outside the run. They have pretty much stopped laying at the moment as 1) they're getting on a bit and 2) they're not keen on this weather, I think. - they stopped over winter, started in the early spring and stopped again when it went cold and wet.
They are ex-free range commercial, we've had them almost 2 years. They have layers mash as their main food source, additional snacks of rice/ potato/ tomatoes, sweetcorn, greens etc. They have free run of the garden most days. We haven't fed them anything blue! They seem happy & full of beans, one has slightly watery poo occasionally - over winter her comb went purple & floppy and we thought she was going to pop her clogs but it's lovely and red and healthy again now.

any ideas? much appreciated.

 

[podstable]

Peacock Blue---my first thought/concern would be possibility of ingestion of rat poison? Ros

 

[Marigold]

I do hope not! I'm sure she would be looking sick by now if that were the case. Is there anything else she/they might have found whilst free ranging in the garden that might be blue, even if you haven't fed it to them on purpose?

By the way, welcome to the forum, Warrenlady!

 

[mollteaser]

Have you given then blueberries or similar? Mine did tremendous blue poops after that. They seem to colour up depending on what they eat.

 

[bex46]

hi, to my knowledge poos turn blue when they are old as the bacteria/fungus gets to work.

 

[Marigold]

If she's still OK tomorrow morning i guess this is just an interesting mystery and nothing to worry about. Strange people, these chickens!

 

[warrenlady]

thank you all for your replies - there was a fresh dead mouse in the bedding yesterday morning, although it didn't look as if the chickens had pecked it at all... we don't use rat poison as I'd be too worried about the cats and chickens picking up a poisoned rodent.
One chicken does free range across several gardens - she's well known to the neighbours, so she could have eaten something on her travels, and neighbours have horses & goats so I think they do use poison as they have lots of rat-encouraging feed & hay etc, but she's still fit as a fiddle.
It's possible the poo was a couple of days old as I don't clean them out every day but never seen this before! Will keep an eye on them, the previously poorly one is looking a bit off colour again, I'm going to worm them as they're due for that anyway.