FINCHforum

My husband and I had to step in and foster our finch chicks after the parents dehydrated their eight babies. Only four remain as a result. We treated with pedialyte and hand feeding formula from Kaytee. Once they began expelling more than just urine/urates after the dehydration (it caused the crops to impact and we had to massage them to get them going again) the poop has been consistantly greenish brown. We are working diligently around the clock to care for these babies and we are very attached. What is the normal poo color with the Kaytee Exact formula? We are currently adding the organic baby applesauce too. Our avian vet is out of town until tomorrow, so any ideas, cures, anything will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

A little TMI but I could add a picture after I got home from work. Any help or advice would mean so much to us.

In an article titled The Scoop On Poop this is what it says:
When a bird is on a largely seed diet, the feces may be any shade of bright green; pelleted diets without added food colorings would produce a dull, brownish-green. If the bird is eating colored pellets, the droppings may reflect what colors are most often chosen.

When I hand fed my babies the poo was a yellowish color due to the color of the formula.

How long have the babies been on the kaytee?
If it's only been a day, I would give it another 12 hours just to make sure all of the seed that had been in their crop and digestive tract is passed.

If it's been more than 24 hours and they still have the greenish poop - I would probably suspect an infection of some kind.
Perhaps yeast... maybe protozoa? Guess it depends what the chances are that the parents were infected.

We have been feeding the babies since 6pm on Monday. The diet has been the same but we are slowly backing off the applesauce as directed. The parents are all healthy, and were being fed a finch seed diet with daily chopped spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, and scrambled eggs. The babies seem to be healthy and their feathers are starting to open up, but the greenish tint to the poo troubles us. We feed them every 2 to 2.5 hours, and their crops are mostly empty to empty when we do. Does this all sound about right?

Outside of the green poo it sounds good :/
Maybe a photo of the poo will help

When I handfed my Star babies, using Kaytee Exact with Medistatin added, seems like their poop (not counting the urates) was a brownish-green, more brown than green but with a green tint to it. Of course, we all see or describe colors differently, so a photo would definitely help. I did the applesauce bit too, when it seemed like they were getting sick, and they pulled out of it.

I tried to take a picture last night, and the color was all blown out due to the flash. I left a message with my vet, and I hope to hear from him today. He is always in high demand on a first day back from being out of town, so a call back may come tomorrow. I tried to use the font color on the right of this reply window to give you all a better idea, but it did not work. Monitor colors vary so much anyway. My little sweet babies seem to be doing very well otherwise. Sally, I am relieved to know your babies had similar results with the Kaytee. It seems to me the babies would not be as vibrant as they are if they were sick. They are very demanding at feeding time, and they are expelling quickly too. I will keep you all posted. Thank you all so much for trying to help me!! I really appreciate it!!

You might check this link about poop
http://www.finchniche.com/f-poopology.mgi
Good luck with them

Perhaps it is just related to that formula if Sally's babies had similar droppings and they were healthy
I have only used Lafeber's hand feeding formula, and the poos from that were a pale yellow/beige color.
They only turned green when the babies got Candida

How is Candida treated, and how quickly does it need to be treated? What are the symptoms other than green poop? I still have not heard from our vet, and would love nothing more than to have my trusted doctor give them a clean bill of health. I have not had a decent nights sleep since Sunday, and would love to not be walking around like a neurotic zombie. I'll take the lack of sleep, but the peace of mind would be nice.

You would probably be able to tell from your babies' behavior if they had a severe infection. If it's mild, you'll see slight symptoms, but it won't kill them over night.
It is sort of a "slow killer" that if left untreated will cause major problems.
For my babies, they were already nearly feathered when they became symptomatic - and the things I saw were pasty vents, sticky, stringy, greenish poo, a "pumping" of the butt following defecation.. puffy, sleepiness/listlessness, etc.
When they are young, like yours, you'll apparently notice that they start keeping their eyes closed (if their eyes are open) a large portion of the time, stop begging, or significantly lose interest in being fed, the food in their crop will take an extremely long time to empty, or not empty at all over night - dehydration, etc. :/

- I should point out, since you do have an avian vet, even if he is inaccessible at the moment, he can easily swab the birds mouth or do a fecal to test for candida.. or other things; maybe it's nothing

I have an update. We stopped adding the applesauce this weekend and the color is now almost the same as the formula. Dare I say, I think we may be out of the woods on that front. One other question, (and perhaps I should start a new thread) how detrimental are the air bubbles in the crop? My husband and I are able to "burp" them out most of the time, but we are finding it increasingly harder as they get older. One baby even spit some formula back out and we said forget it. We hate removing the bubbles because it feels cruel, not to mention they are fighting it more. What should we do?

Bubbles are fine IMO.

My chicks usually have them particularly if hand feeding.
I haven't seen them as a sign of any problems.. but that's just me.

Bubbles are fine...it comes from begging and gulping air. The faster you are able to feed the less air will get in.....
It is possible to rupture the crop sac so burp with caution.
I have never had a problem with the air in the sac... the birds will expell it on it's own as it empties it'e crop. Forcing the air out and having them spit up food can be harmful. It can be inhaled into the lungs, which is almost always deadly.

Thank you all very much for answering about the air bubbles. We really did not want to have to "burp" anymore, so I'm glad to know it is not necessary. The only reason we did was because it said to on the handfeeding section on finchinfo. The babies seem to be doing very well, and we are going to have to move them into a little cage soon. We want to keep them in the brooder for as long as possible, but we are seeing lots of wing flapping and adventure seeking going on in there. One of the babies looks like he/she has a splayed legs problem, so we need to figure out exactly what to do about that. Thank you all again very much, and I will try to get a picture up soon!