# Molting and Abnormal Droppings



## oodra (Sep 8, 2016)

I'm needing advice on this especially if anyone's experienced this. It's making me a nervous wreck. I will clarify that I'm going to have my cockatiel taken to the vet tomorrow. 

For the past week or so my cockatiel has been molting and her stool has been loose and watery. The coloring of her poop and the urates are normal, but sometimes the urine/watery part itself has been a yellow-hue. I'm wondering if the fact that she's molting is contributing to her stool being loose. What worries me is the yellow-ish color of the urine part since that can be an indication of liver problems. 

I was apprehensive of posting here because I don't want to be criticized. I love and care about her very much, and like I stated. I will be taking her to her regular vet tomorrow.


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## ninfatiel (Jul 22, 2016)

some of my birds had a yellow hue to urates/feces (see the tread "'please help me diagnose the illness"') and the sickiest of them was also in a molt, so I guess it affected him most. Of course the vet may clarify the reason, but the molting can contribute to situation if the bird is already sick with something,then molting will make the sickness more apparent 
what I found out form my experience yellow/green urates does not necessarily mean liver problems, my birds had intestinal tract infection but it appeared that they had colored urates, when necroscopy was performed,the liver was absolutely fine,but urates were green, or lime yellow for other birds.. 
Best of luck to you, and hope you will figure it out and help your little feathered friend!


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## Schubird (Jun 12, 2015)

Ho boy, this has been my summer.

Schubert starting molting in June, a pretty heavy molt, and his droppings have been watery since the start of it. He's just now seeming to come out of his molt (it was a BIG one!), but his droppings are still occasionally watery. Multiple vet visits, culture, gram stain, two rounds of antibiotics, and brewers yeast seemed to do nothing and pointed to him being healthy. We took him completely off of seeds and his stools hardened up for two days before getting watery again. We wondered if he was stressed from being in his cage because they would sometimes firm up once he was out. We're starting to believe he gets stressed in his cage, gets bored, and then drinks a lot of water leading to his watery stools. When he's out of the cage he's not drinking as much and they firm up.

Definitely take him into his vet tomorrow so he can get a gram stain and make sure everything's checking out, but in my three month search for information on this subject, I kept finding answers of "could be nothing, could be kidney failure" (which literally no one wants to hear), but what I also kept finding was forum posts and articles about cockatiels and other birds with loose, watery stools while molting. It seems to be a fairly common thing. Take him to his vet to be certain, but have solace that maybe you just have a quirky or bored bird like mine.


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