FINCHforum

I noticed today that the poop in my female gouldian community cage is green and not dry.

Most of the hens are molting, so I would guess that they are under stress.
They are also eating egg + greens every day (lettuce, chard, etc), but so are the other birds and they do not have soft green poop.

Any ideas of what I could do.
I just gave them Thrive on their egg + NV powder in the water, and will repeat this in the morning.

Thanks

Gary is that a corn cob material on the bottom? I used that yrs ago when raising parrotlets. If it gets wet it wet food stays on it it will mold quickly. At first place it looked like mold. Are they having any other symptoms?

It is a compressed wood pellet. I guess it is like corncob in that it absorbs the liquid from the poop. I put it in some of the cages where the poop is a little wet like the gouldians and my societies.

Oh the other factor is I have a sheet of newspaper over the front of the cage to block the hens from seeing the male gouldians. So there is that much less air flow to dry out the poop.

Do you think since the poop might have stayed wet enough to mold a bit? Is it in a spot that gets wet, is that the only spot?

What of the mold you mentioned?
I cleaned the tray and threw it out in the garbage, so I can't go look at it again. Although next time I will bring out my magnifying glass. My middle-age eyes can't see like they used to.

No it is not in one spot, but stretched out in a line below the high perch in the cage. The poop could get wet, IF the birds would take a bath. But the poop seems to stay wet/damp, especially once the poop has stuck onto the wire grate and collected on the grate.

I will try to see how I can increase the airflow into that cage w/o creating a draft. Maybe that will help dry out the poop.

But, the poop is soft and does not look like a proper poop as described on the poopology page:
http://www.ladygouldianfinch.com/features_poopology.php
So I figure something is not right.

Could it be that they are gorging on the soft food?

First thing I would do is take out the wood pellets and put in paper so you can see the poop better. Then I would stop feeding the greens and see if that makes a difference. Birds poop should not be wet. If you do this let us know if anything changes in the poop. I've never heard of egg turning their poop green or making it wet so I would keep feeding that so if there is a problem at least they are getting lots of protein to help them fight it.

I agree with Debbie...take the wood pellets out and line the tray with white paper towels, stop any moist food and see if it stops. Monique has a point it could be that they are eating two much of the greens and it is adding to much moisture to the poop.

If the poop remains wet I would not put wood pellets back in until the poop changes or you figure out why. The wood pellets may encourage mold growth if the pellets remain wet for to long.

Can you take a picture of it on the white paper toweling?

I stopped the green veggies, and the dark green poop seems to have gone away. I gave them a few days to flush their digestive system of veggies, I just changed their newspaper w paper towels today.

So the hens were passing the green veggies thru more so than the others. And the poop isn't as soft as it was. So the veggies seem to be the cause of the green poop, and at least some of the soft poop.

But some of the poop is still soft, so I will stop the fresh egg food this week and see if the fresh egg might be a cause of the soft poop. I wanted to see if it was just the veggies, before I stopped the fresh egg food.

Part of the mystery solved.

It is kind of like feeding a dog dried kibble the poo is solid, add some canned or to much canned to the food and the poo is soft or runny, the moisture content in greens is very high and some of it is absorbed and some is passed. Greend are good but when you reintroduce them, try only a couple of times a week a few days apart, for a short amount of time say 30 minutes then remove them.