Birds don’t urinate the same way that humans do, while they do urinate and poop they also produce a white chalky substance that is different from feces and urine, these are called urates.
Urates come out with the bird’s poop and urine but if no urates come out with the bird’s poop and urine you’d be right to be worried, This article looks into it.
No urates in bird poop:
You as a bird owner will know what your bird’s normal droppings look like.
If your bird is used to producing poop with a certain amount of urates, and the bird suddenly starts producing poop with no urates in it, then this will likely be very alarming to you.
Here is what is going on:
Your bird will produce a mixture of poop (the brown or green solid material) urates (the white chalky material) and urine (the clear liquid material).
All three materials are mixed while inside the bird’s cloaca and they come out all at once when released by the bird.
The urates are a byproduct of the digestion and metabolism of protein in your bird’s body and the urine is the watery waste that the kidneys produce.
The amount of urine that the bird produces is dependent on how much water your bird takes in
A bird that starts to take in more water, if it eats water-rich foods, if it drinks more liquids, or if it drinks more water in general, then the bird’s kidneys will have more liquid to produce the watery product that is urine.
This urine will dilute the urates making it seem as though there are no urates in your bird’s poop.
A bird that is eating a diet of mostly dry pellets will produce less urine and less urine will make it seem as though the bird is producing more urates.
What to do:
Your bird having a high water intake is good but not to an extent where it permanently dilutes the urates in the bird’s poop. If this is happening then your bird is too hydrated.
Give the birds less water-rich foods and see how the bird’s poop changes after you do this.
If you give the bird less water-rich foods, and the bird’s poop is still not going back to normal, then you’d need to take the bird to the vet.
If the bird’s poop still has no urates in it for more than a week even after you’ve changed the bird’s diet then you definitely need to take the bird to the vet.
When taking the bird to the vet, give the vet a fresh fecal sample to examine. The vet will use this to test to see if there are any underlying issues causing the lack of urates.
Place fresh, clean, white paper towels in your bird’s cage and let the poop fall on these towels, take these samples to the vet.
Using paper towels to collect the samples is simple and doing this will make it easy for your vet to examine the poop.
Other methods of collection are available, like newspapers, but this may make the bird’s poop more difficult to examine.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Conure Poop Watery, Why Is My Conure So Clingy?, Why Are Cockatoos So Loud?, Parrot Stomach Infection, How To Clean Cockatiel Tail Feathers, Cockatiel Feathers Turning Black, Conure Closing One Eye