With the popularity of keeping backyard chickens skyrocketing right now, the number of people reaching out and asking various questions about caring for chickens is higher than ever.
Each month we see more and more people reaching out and asking various questions about their chickens but we have noticed an increase in the number of people asking about caring for a chicken with green poop that is lethargic.
With so many people reaching out about their chicken having green poop and suffering from lethargy, we have decided to publish this article as the most common cause of these symptom is usually easy to treat.
The two second most common causes of this can often be easy to avoid or treat depending on your exact situation too.
We have added a comparison table to our article below to try and make it as quick and easy as possible to skip to specific sections of the article.
The table of contents gives a good idea of the potential causes that you may be able to match up with your chicken to help you quickly narrow down the cause of the problem but we would highly recommend you at least skim the full article if possible.
What Causes Green Poop In Chickens?
The three most common causes of green poop and lethargy in chickens by far is a lack of food, parasites, and slug pellets in that order.
Each cause can commonly be overlooked by chicken keepers and make the problem worse as they presume that it must be something else causing the problem in their chicken but it is usually a very straightforward cause and treatment.
There are a small number of less common causes that can cause green poop and lethargy in your chicken but these are rare and do tend to be difficult to diagnose.
If you do suspect that the cause could be due to one of these less common conditions then booking a short video call with a veterinarian is probably the best way to go for most people as they are hard to diagnose.
For the most part though, the cause of the green poop in your pet chicken will be one of the three more common causes and we will be taking a more in-depth look at them in our article below.
We will be going over ways that you are able to identify each cause as well as how best to treat it to help you get your chicken back to full health as quickly as possible.
Make Sure Your Chicken Is Getting Plenty Of Food!
The most common cause of green poop and lethargy in chickens is definitely a lack of food causing a build-up of excess bile changing the chicken’s poop to a shade of green.
The less food in the chicken, the lower the energy it has and thus the lethargic behavior but thankfully you can just hand feed your chicken to make sure that it is getting the calories and nutrients it requires.
As we covered in our article on how long chickens can go without food, it can be common for a group of chickens to push weaker chickens away from the feed you give them and prevent them from eating.
This can be common and many chicken owners will overlook the problem as they throw plenty of food for all their chickens but are unaware that the weaker chickens are pushed away from the food by the rest of the group resulting in them getting minimal food.
Thankfully, this is a very easy fix as you are able to just hand feed your chicken with green poop a high-quality chicken feed to make sure that it is getting all the food it needs.
You should be able to see a chance in the chicken within two to three days if this is the cause of the issues in the chicken and once the chicken has its strength back it will often push back against the other chickens to get food by itself preventing the issue from occurring in the future.
Treat For Parasites!
Parasites are very common in chickens and some types of parasites can either be a direct or indirect cause of green poop and lethargic behavior in chickens.
Different types of parasites can cause this issue in different ways but they are all generally easy to treat and you can sometimes identify parasites as the cause of the green poop by some parasites actually being in your chicken’s poop.
If you do suspect that your chicken is being lethargic and suffering from green, watery poop due to parasites then Ivermectin can be an excellent treatment option in many cases.
Just keep in mind that you will usually have to use an Ivermectin product designed for other types of birds so using it for chickens is technically an off-label use case but many chicken owners use Ivermectin in this way.
You can also get specific treatments for your chicken’s parasites from a vet with a short video call usually being the cheapest way to have a vet give your chicken the once over.
This will enable the veterinarian to give you specific treatments for the exact type of parasites your chicken is suffering from too as Ivermectin does not treat all types of parasites.
Search For Slug Pellets!
Unfortunately, chickens will often forage and try to eat a wide range of random things that they find in your garden with some of the things that they try to eat not being food for them.
Slug pellets is a common thing that chickens will mistake for food and end up having issues with once ingested and green poop can be a very common side effect of a chicken eating slug pellets.
The problem with slug pellets is that you may have used them years prior to even getting your chickens and then your chicken randomly finds some old pellets on the ground and starts eating them.
If you think that your chicken has ate old slug pellets then it can be difficult to work out the type of slug pellets that you used too making it harder to treat.
If the slug pellets are based around the iron phosphate active ingredient then they tend to only cause temporary issues in your pets.
If the slug pellets are based on using the Metaldehyde active ingredient then depending on the amount of Metaldehyde in the chickens it really can end up causing problems and potentially end up being lethal with there being little to nothing you are able to do once injected.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over the common causes of a chicken having green poop and being lethargic to an end. We hope that we have been able to help you better identify the cause of the problem in your chicken as well as how you are able to treat the issue to help your chicken recover. The first two causes of green poop in chickens do tend to be much easier to treat but the third cause can unfortunately be lethal in some cases.
