Messy Poop

Post by **Hilary** » Fri May 19, 2006 6:40 am

After 3 weeks in quarantine (see, I have been waiting!), WormOut and Ronivet, my new owls and nun are perky but still have messy, undefined poop. Vents are dry. I don't want to put them in the "general population" until I get this cleared up, but am not sure what else to try. Suggestions? I keep reading to use the bleach treatment for similar problems on another forum, but would like a second opinion (or third and fourth and.....) - it seems too much like poisoning the birds. Help! The quarantine cage is smaller than their permanent home, and I'd love to get these hyperactive buggers into larger quarters!

Hilary

tammieb · Post by **tammieb** » Fri May 19, 2006 9:29 am

Perhaps they are going through a dietary adjustment period. Are you feeding them anything different than the breeder did?

When I purchased my flock of 12, I made sure to feed them the exact same seed, veggies and etc. as the previous owner did to make the move easier on them. I don't know if this was necessary, but I know it works for horses.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri May 19, 2006 9:48 am

It's a different seed mix, but I would have thought 3 weeks would have been long enough for them to adjust? Wait another week and see if they show any signs of improving? Thanks! Hilary

tammieb · Post by **tammieb** » Fri May 19, 2006 1:26 pm

Yeah, you would think three weeks would be enough time for their systems to adjust. If they seem otherwise healthy, I don't know what else could be the problem.

Hopefully someone will come along with a better idea of what may be causing your runny poops.

Post by **Hilary** » Fri May 19, 2006 5:41 pm

OK, let me be clear - they're not MY runny poops!!

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Fri May 19, 2006 7:24 pm

Haha, your runny poops.

Hilary, can you take a picture of the droppings and post it? Or describe them in such incredible detail that a police artist could draw an exact likeness? Color, consistency, size, what kind of bedding they are falling on, whether or not you see a white part, a colored part (usually green or brown), and clear urine...or if the white part isn't all that white, or if the clear urine isn't all that clear.. etc.

I would not treat with bleach. But get back to me :)

Post by **Hilary** » Fri May 19, 2006 8:19 pm

Thanks Crystal! I took a couple of pics, but have to recharge the batteries before I can upload a picture.

They do look better than they did now that I look more closely, but still not as good as that of my other birds.

Pending the pic, they appear to be mostly urates (the chalky part) which is good and white, and there's not a lot of feces (though I'm noticing more today). Feces where defined are pretty gray. They're pretty much ignoring everything but seed, so I'd expect them to be a lot drier.... Can't tell about the urine - I'm using newspaper - though the freshest "gifts" have a normal wet spot around them. The bottom of their nest is kind of coated with layers rather than have individual poops (it's getting tossed when I move them out of the quarantine cage). Am I just overreacting? I would sure love to move them into their much bigger flight cage (with Bob), but don't want to do so until I'm sure they won't pass anything on!

Hilary

Post by **Hilary** » Sat May 20, 2006 8:06 pm

OK, after closely examining my birds' offerings I decided that they weren't bad after all - they're just very small birds so they look different than what comes from my larger finches. So I went ahead and finally moved my black headed nun girl in to meet Bob. My goodness! She had barely landed on a perch before he jumped on top of her, and jumped her about 3 more times in the first 5 min I watched them, singing constantly! I guess *real* men don't court!! She finally got sick of it and let him know, and they're now settled down. Guess the wait for hard for him, as well!

Hilary

JeannetteD · Post by **JeannetteD** » Sun May 21, 2006 1:28 pm

LOL

Well, glad to see they're alright, Hilary!

My CB did the same thing. The second he got in with the female he jumped her! Now they're best friends if you know what i mean.

Jeannette

MadHatter · Post by **MadHatter** » Tue May 23, 2006 10:44 pm

Seems i am a bit late to the party, but I thought I'd contribute all the same.
In my experience, birds often sufer from slight digestive upsets when dosed with wormer/other medications - often resulting in runny droppings.
This sometimes develops indirectly from worming if the bird has a significant worm burden - the worms in the gut die and form a tangled mass which can take some time to break up and pass. As a result the bird is a bit "backed up" so to speak, and thus it's droppings mostly have somewhat excessive urates and little fecal matter.

Post by **Hilary** » Tue May 23, 2006 11:49 pm

Mad -

That makes sense. They had been in the quarantine cage for about 3 weeks (actually the owls are still there, since everybody seems to be nesting in the flight cage that I want to move them to), and I wormed them when I first brought them home. I had figured it might be stomach upset from the change in seed, but 3 weeks seemed to be a little long for that!

Thanks! Hilary

terrypilot · Post by **terrypilot** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 5:13 pm

I have a yellow Gouldian and when in the large outdoor aviary, she mostly sleeps and is lathargic. But when I put her in a small cage for "rehab" she instantly is perky and her feathers tighten up. She did drop a brownish runny sttol right away.
What is going on I wonder?

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