Do Chickens Poop Everywhere?
The chicken manure that we get for free happens to be one of the overwhelming things regarding backyard chickens. Free-roaming chickens are going to spread it out for you in your garden. As a matter of fact, one can consider chickens to be poop machines. They produce almost 40 kg (88,2 lb) every hen every year.
Although it might sound to be great, there is some downside to it as well. The fact is that chickens will not contain themselves only around the fruit trees. (This is the place where you want them to poop). They are going to poop almost everywhere. Moreover, they love pooping in those locations where they should not. As a matter of fact, they are in the habit of pooping a minimum of 15 times on a regular basis.
However, the good thing is that chicken poop can prove to be a good fertilizer for your garden. On the other hand, dogs’, as well as cats’ poop, can destroy your garden in the long run. Nevertheless, chicken poop can be quite annoying in case you do not manage it effectively.
Where Do Chickens Poop Most?
As mentioned earlier, chickens tend to poop almost everywhere. And they like to poop in those regions where you do not like them to poop. Chickens will poop in the patio, the driveway, the deck, the patio furniture, and even in the paved areas.
Can You Potty Train A Chicken?
You must have tamed your chicken before potty training it. This implies that it will be able to sit on your hand freely without any help. However, accidents might still take place. This might happen even after you have trained it to use a specified area for pooping. You simply need to be patient.
It will be of no use to praise a chicken, and it will confuse her more. Reward it with a treat after it has gone poop. It takes plenty of time to potty train a chicken successfully.
Begin to potty train the chicken when it is quite tender in age. The ideal time is when it is 3 weeks old. However, it does not imply that one cannot potty train older chickens out there.
Although not imperative, try teaching the chicken to poop only when you command it to do so. For this, you need to predict when the bird is going to go. Even though some birds tend to ruffle their feathers prior to pooping, others don’t. For this, you need to observe the chicken in the coop for quite some time.
Once you bring it inside, arrange for an area for it to go in like a litter box. Hold the bird on the arm of yours, and perform something idle like viewing television. Following this, watch the bird patiently for any indication of pooping.
The subsequent step will be to go for a whistle or a hand signal which will be the instruction for pooping. Make it a point to use a signal which you do not use daily.
Once you feel that the chicken is ready to poop, take it to the selected area quickly. Hold it over the area and wait for the job till it is finished. Once done, do not forget to provide the bird with a treat. Go on repeating this process once you think it is about to poop. After teaching this step to the bird, you can move on to the subsequent step which is quite simple.
If it is not possible for you to train your chicken in this manner, then there is one more option for you. It happens to be chicken diapers which will help you to control their manure. Chicken keepers most use them at present who like to keep the birds indoors. You need to change the diapers at least one time every day. In fact, these are tailor-made for keeping faeces away from the body of the bird.
Potty training your chicken definitely takes lots of patience as well as time. However, after handing these birds take care to wash your hands and change your clothes as well. Do not forget to wash your face in case you have got a few chicken hugs.
N.B. Do not reward your bird in case it does not listen to your command. Practice this exercise systematically till it begins to go on its own.
What Does Normal Chicken Poop Look Like?
In case your chicken poops out something that appears to be somewhat unfamiliar then you need to be cautious. In fact, the poop of your bird will be different depending on what they consume and from where the faeces are coming. It will also depend on the health of the bird.
Chicken poop is often some shade of brown and fairly solid, with a sort of fluffy white spot on top. The solid part is faecal matter witch is digested and partially digested food. The white spot is called the urates and it is uric acid. That is what would be the urine in other animals.
Below, we will elaborate on everything regarding the faeces of the chicken and we will begin with their digestive system.
The digestive systems of the chickens are quite intriguing as well as confusing. First of all, they do not have any teeth for chewing their food. As a matter of fact, their eggs, poo, and pee all come out from the same hole.
Now we will track the path of the food from start to finish within the digestive system of the bird.
- The birds will be pecking at the food which will travel to the crop on the digestive tract. Here, the enzymes will help to break down the food thus helping in the digestive procedure.
- Following this, the food will be moving to the gizzard, and it is exactly where the grit comes of use. It will grind the food up together with the stones which the birds have consumed.
- After this process, the food will pass through the small intestine and this absorbs the nutrition.
- Chickens, unlike humans, come with an additional organ branching off the intestines which we call the ceca. The ceca’s objective will be to catch extra nutrition by further fermenting the foodstuff. The food stays for some time in the ceca and gets expelled several times on a regular basis. (For this reason, the poo of the bird appears to be different all through the day.)
- Finally, the cloaca helps to combine the “leftovers” along with urates, and this produces white droppings. The poop will come out of the chicken from there by means of the vent.
After comprehending the operation of the digestive system of the chicken, we will look at the poo more closely. We will likewise see what variations it might indicate for your chicken’s health.
The subsequent variations happen to be the most typical poo dollops you will be seeing around the garden. While some of them are normal, others might indicate possible health concerns.
Normal Variations Of The Chicken Poop
All these 3 kinds of poop will signify that the digestive tract of the bird is quite healthy.
1. Regular Poop
It is a fact that the regular poop of the chicken comes with lots of different faces. The appearance of the faeces can differ a lot depending on what the chicken has consumed and also the outdoor temperature. Having said that the majority of healthy chicken poop appears to be greenish and brownish.
However, you need not worry about runny chicken poop. In fact, chicken poop can be quite runny in case the outside temperature is hot.
2. Cecal Poop
The ceca are going to expel its contents several times on a daily basis. It is likely that you are watching cecal poop if the poo does not consist of the whitish urate cap.
There is no need to worry in case this dropping happens to be quite smelly. It is quite normal for the poop to have this type of stink.
3. Broody Hen Poop
You can assert that your chicken is broody after you have identified your initial bit of broody poop. In spite of what you usually see, chickens do not prefer to soil their nests while laying eggs. For avoiding any mess, the bird is going to hold it in for a longer period of time than usual.
As a matter of fact, a broody chicken will leave her nest several times daily for eating, drinking, and pooping. While the bird relieves her finally, she is going to unload plenty of droppings simultaneously.
As usual, it will smell really horrible as well.
Abnormal Variations Of The Chicken Poop
Healthy chicken poop might be runny and can have different colour variations depending on the diet of the bird. However, the following types of poop might signify an underlying issue.
1. Wormy Chicken Poop
In case you observe worms in the droppings of your bird, it is quite obvious that it has got a parasitic infection. Make it a point to deworm the chicken with various types of methods if you think that it has worms. However, try to identify the worm type prior to removing them from the digestive system of the hen.
Visit your vet with the droppings in case you are not sanguine regarding the type of worms. The vet will be the best person to identify the type of parasite and they will also treat your bird properly. Bear in mind that if one of your hens has got worms, then the others will probably have to. Therefore, treat all of them accordingly.
2. Foamy Chicken Poop
A foamy stool could be one more symptom of a problem with the digestive system of your hen. We all suffer from an upset stomach from time to time.
Consequently, there is no need to panic in case you observe frothy poop from your bird. That day, it might have consumed lots of protein, and its system is responding differently because of the additional intake.
Nevertheless, in case the hen goes on having yellow and foamy poop, there might be a bacterial infection in the stomach. It might also have worms. Observe the bird closely to ensure that it passes gradually over time.
3. Watery Droppings
It is possible to have runny chicken poop in high temperatures. It might appear to be watery and thin. Nevertheless, in case the hen is defecating excessively, and the temperature is not that hot, it might have consumed some undesirable stuff. It is also possible for the hen to have an infection or even worms.
If this happens, the best thing will be to alienate the hen from the rest of the birds. Talk to your vet if you are not sanguine regarding the cause of the problem.
How Often Should You Clean A Chicken Coop?
In case you do own a flock of hens, you must know how frequently you ought to clean their coop. In fact, cleaning coop needs maintenance on a regular basis. You must get rid of any leftover water and food every single night. Get rid of the old droppings once every week, and swap the bedding with new material of good quality.
You must conduct a comprehensive deep clean once or twice a year. However, as compared to other coops, some are more untidy and you need to perform a comprehensive scrubbing. Your flock size will ascertain how frequently you must clean the coop. in case your flock is quite big, you need to clean the coop more often than usual.
Is Chicken Poop Toxic To Humans? (Can Cleaning A Chicken Coop Make You Sick?)
Although chicken poop can provide excellent manure to your garden, it can prove to be quite harmful to humans.
A group of bacteria known as E. coli gets pathogenic once they pass in the droppings of the chicken. Several E. coli types produce a toxin known as Shiga toxin. E. coli can infect individuals of every age. Symptoms might include vomiting, stomach cramps, and diarrhoea. Blood can also be present in the stool along with fever.
Salmonella bacteria can cause an infection known as Salmonellosis. These bacteria pass in the stool of the hens. Symptoms might consist of fever, abdominal cramps, and diarrhoea which might happen within 3 days after infection.
Tiny cryptosporidium parasites can cause an infection known as Cryptosporidiosis. When these parasites infect the birds, they excrete them by means of their poop. The first indication of sickness happens within 7 days of infection. Symptoms might consist of loss of appetite, fever, and diarrhoea, loss of weight, abdominal cramps, dehydration, and vomiting.
Is Chicken Poop Bad?
Chicken poop cannot be considered to be bad since it can provide good manure for your garden. In fact, it helps to provide phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium to the plants. Although it might prove to be harmful to human health, its benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks.
Thus chicken poop is not that bad after all.
How Do You Dispose Of Chicken Poop?
It will be a good idea to get rid of the chicken poop by placing it in the compost pile. It is packed with both the browns as well as the greens (the poop). You intend to create decent compost, and therefore, it goes right into the compost bin. You will get black gold within a short span of time with the proper additions.
Otherwise, you can likewise sell the poop to the gardeners who will not mind composting it on their own. In fact, many people are doing this right now. You can make advertisements on online bulletin boards or regional farm groups.
Another way to dispose of the poop will be to use it in the garden. However, do not do this while it is fresh since it might burn the plant roots and over-fertilize the garden soil.
Can You Fertilize With Chicken Poop?
Chicken manure will prove to be a good fertilizer for your vegetable garden. Although it is possible to fertilize with chicken poop, you need to bear in mind several things for using it correctly. Let us see how to get the job done in the following paragraphs.
It is a fact that chicken manure fertilizer is packed with phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen. The balanced nutrients and high amount of nitrogen help to make chicken manure compost the best type of manure.
However, if not properly composted, the high amount of nitrogen in the manure can be detrimental for the garden plants. As a matter of fact, raw manure has the ability to burn and also kill plants. On the other hand, composting manure will help to mellow the nitrogen and thus make it ideal for your garden.
It is simple to compost the chicken manure. First, get hold of the chicken bedding before placing it into the compost bin. Turn the pile at the interval of several weeks while watering thoroughly. The manure compost is ready after 6 to 9 months. In case you are not sanguine whether the chicken manure has composted properly, you can wait for 1 year.
Once the composting process comes to an end, you can start using it. Just spread the manure compost over the yard evenly. Use a tiller or a shovel to work it into the garden soil. Chicken manure will help your veggies to grow healthier and bigger in no time at all!
