How a poop looks can tell you a lot about the person or animal that made it. If you know how your duck’s regular poop looks, a sudden change in the poop can be quite concerning.
This article explores why your duck is producing white duck poop and what to do about it.
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White duck poop:
How your duck’s poop looks is greatly affected by what the bird is eating. A change in the poop signals a change in your duck somehow, sometimes this change is not a good change. Here are reasons why your duck’s poop is white:
Urates:
Duck poop is known to be green or brown in color but a white material on the duck’s poop is normal as well, it has to do with the amount of protein the bird gets in its diet.
A byproduct of protein metabolization in birds is ammonia. The white paste on duck poop is called urates and this contains ammonia.
Ammonia is toxic to birds so the bird’s body has to get rid of it on a regular basis. Birds release white urates as a way of cleansing their bodies of ammonia.
The urates come out with the bird’s feces, which is a brown or green material.
Removing urates as a paste, and not creating urine to release the urates, also keeps the bird’s body from having to store water. The fact that birds don’t store water makes them lightweight which helps them when flying.
What to do:
There is nothing to worry about in this case, a duck producing urates on top of its green or brown poop is normal and natural.
If you want to make sure that everything is in order you can take your bird to the vet for a health exam. The vet will examine the duck’s poop and confirm or deny if your duck’s poop is indeed normal.
If the bird’s poop is deemed to be normal by the vet you can use how this poop looks as a baseline when comparing the duck’s poop in the future if you think that the bird is sick.
Knowing the baseline of what is normal for your duck will help you figure out when their poop becomes abnormal.
Infection:
If you have a baseline of what your duck’s poop looks like, and the bird starts producing poop with more white than usual or white swirls in the poop then you should be worried, more white than normal or white swirls in the poop is usually a sign of an infection in the bird.
Ducks can get bacterial or viral infections and these can cause the bird to develop white poop.
What to do:
A duck that is suffering from an infection needs a visit to the vet. The vet will take a stool sample and look at the stool under a microscope to figure out what is wrong with the bird.
The vet may also do an array of tests to figure out what is wrong with the bird.
Taking the bird to the vet to be examined, tested, and diagnosed rather than trying to do this yourself is recommended as the vet can quickly figure out what is wrong with the bird.
The vet will also be able to give the bird antibiotics for the infection or other types of medications for the infection.
Stress:
Stress can also be a contributing factor as to why your duck’s poop has changed. Stress can cause your bird to develop diarrhea but it can also cause your bird to start producing white poop.
Your duck can develop stress if it is experiencing temperature changes, if its diet has suddenly changed, if the bird is laying more eggs, drinking more, if there are loud noises in the area, if predators are in the area, new objects in their pen, new people in the area, new pen mates, or if the duck is molting.
These aren’t all the reasons why your bird may be feeling stressed but they are some.
What to do:
Start off by figuring out what is stressing your bird. Once you’ve figured out what your bird’s stressors are you’d need to get the stressor away from your bird or get your bird away from what is stressing it.
Once this is done, you can try getting your bird to relax by comforting the bird. You can do this by lowering yourself to the bird’s level and offering the bird some of its favorite treats, give the bird lettuce, broccoli, frozen peas, or sliced grapes.
Adding electrolytes to the bird’s water will also help to calm it down.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other duck related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Duck poop black , Duckling Weak After Hatching, How To Make A Duck Diaper Out Of A Sock, Sugar Water For Ducklings