fleming@acsu.buffalo.edu (christine m fleming) (12/20/90)
My Cockatiel (who is about 3 months old or so...) has begun to exhibit rather watery droppings. He is eating a seed diet (supplemented with petemine (sp?), some pellets, and a decent amound of "people" food. Mainly he likes pasta and tofu.) He is alert and seems happy. Is there something wrong with him, or is this to be expected? The droppings are brownish surrounding a whiteish centre, and then expelled with a surprising quantity of clear liquid i am assuming is water. (Enough to wet an area perhaps the size of a quarter.) Any suggestions? --
ooblick@intercon.com (Mikki Barry) (12/21/90)
Watery droppings can be a sign of sickness, or a result of eating fresh fruit and/or vegetables. To be certain, consult a real live avian vet. Mikki Barry --
mm@lectroid.sw.stratus.com (Mike Mahler) (12/22/90)
I've recently had a similar problem with my cockatiel. What I thought was diahrea was actually an increased amount of unrine (pool of clear liquid with strings of solid fecal matter inside) in the droppings and not diahrea (green or brownish colored pool with no discernable form of stool or urates inside). Fecal culture came back negative after the bird had been on bactrin for 4 days and it was already starting to clear up. It's hard to tell exactly what it was, but I changed the following things about her feeding: 1) Curtailed the use of Nekton-S added to the food (this went against my better judgement but it occured to me that she might be expelling the "extra" vitamins that are normally excreted through urine), 2) Switched from filtered tap to bottled water, 3) Obtained fresh feed and pellets and discarded the current batch (switched pellets at this time to Lafabre which she seemed to like better), 4) Added more fiberous vegetables and curtailed fruit. Was there an infection the culture didn't pick up and the bactrin supressed enough for her immune system to kill off? Yeah, it's hard to tell what it might have been considering all the changes I made in a short time but with these birds you don't have time to change something and then wait since they can be dead. -- Disclaimer, disclaimo, disclaima, disclaimanous.