Q&A

DEAR NEW FARM:

If one has poultry and some of the birds have watery dropping, what can be the cause?

Michael Ogunduyile
California

DEAR MICHAEL:

Jeff Mattocks from Fertrell www.fertrell.com, a Pennsylvania-based company specializing in organic fertilizers and animal nutrition, just stopped by to answer another reader question. Here’s what Jeff had to say when we posed this one to him:

“Watery manure most of the time is caused by the birds eating food from the ground or from bedding that is contaminated with bacteria foreign to their digestive tract. It kind of resembles food poisoning or viral intestinal infections. In most cases, the birds get over it just fine. If you would like to help the chickens along, you can offer them plain yogurt to re-seed the gut with beneficial bacteria.”

NF

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