Lovebirds Droppings- The Secrets Revealed

Most of the pet bird lovers are confused with the normal droppings of lovebirds with that of abnormal one. Generally the lovebirds pass watery droppings. As a lovebird owner you should know the constituents of normal droppings.

Lovebird's droppings consist of three separate components including feces, urine and urates. Since the bird pushes the droppings out of one orifice, the vent, all three portions of the droppings are mixed in the cloaca before being passed out of the body.

The Feces

The feces of the lovebirds are solid and worm-like, may be dark green in color. In addition to this, the color of the feces varies mostly what the bird has recently consumed. It can be alarming to the owner if he sees reddish color feces, as this may be interpreted as blood. Hence it is utmost important for the lovebirds breeder to see what their lovebirds are consuming, so that color changes can be correctly evaluated.

If the fecal portion of the droppings is very sticky, tarry, dark, and dark green, then the lovebird doesn't eat any solid food for the past 24 hours. Usually the lovebird breeders often mistaken for digested blood in the droppings, but it is really a kind of bile (biliverdin) from the liver.

The Urine
You can notice the watery droppings in case the feces portion is missing in the droppings, which is an indicative of increase in the urine level. Most of the lovebirds breeders will consider that their bird is passing diarrhea, but it is not so. If the feces is solid with no urine at all, it is not diarrhea.

Missing of brown or green solid fecal portion with watery droppings is an indicative of diarrhea. Some types of diarrhea will show gas bubbles in the droppings, which is an indicative of presence of anerobic bacteria.

Urates

The last part of the lovebirds dropping is urates. It is the end product of protein metabolism in the avian system. This product is filtered in kidney and evacuated in droppings. If your lovebird is showing yellow and green urates, then the avian patients are suffering from liver problem and chlamydophila infection respectively.

As bottom line, the lovebird breeders should aware that when birds consume greens or fruits, it would lead to diarrhea. Some of the breeders are having false opinion about this fact.

Moreover, if your lovebird is nervous, the droppings would be more watery, which is due to high blood pressure than normal.

Any deviation in the lovebirds dropping should brought to the notice of your avian vet immediately to save your valuable lovebirds life.

How to Identify Sick Lovebirds?

If you know your lovebirds well, you will be able to tell by their behavior and appearance whether or not they are feeling well. Healthy lovebirds are active and feathers are flat and sleek. Deviant behavior could include that there is some kind of problem, may be lovebird sickness.

The lovebird might start to become withdrawn, apathetic, start making stereotypical movements, start plucking its feathers or just generally becomes restless. One of the first signs of sickness is that the lovebird’s feathers are “fluffed up” rather than flat and sleek and that the bird is generally listless.

A lot of lovebirds will look like this when the ambient temperature is too low for them. By fluffing up their feathers they retain some body heat in the space between their feathers. An increase in temperature will generally improve things in these cases.

Other symptoms that tell you that there may be something wrong with lovebirds includes difficulty in breathing, “gasping” for air, diarrhea, loss of appetite, bald spots, feather loss, abundant molting, tum-ors on the bill, legs, and around the eyes, partial or full paralysis, a discharge from the nose or eyes, and swellings.

When you suspect sickness with your birds, you should never just wait and see how things develop, but take immediate action. If you keep in touch with experienced bird-keepers and breeders, then you will be able to present the problem to them.

Experienced bird-keepers know certain symptoms very well and often know exactly how you treat them. You could try and get in touch with experienced people via bird associations. In addition, you could try and contact your veterinary surgeon.

A simple examination of the lovebird’s droppings might be all that is needed to find out what is wrong. In other cases, a blood sample or examination of one of the affected birds be needed to find out what is wrong.

Lovebirds Cage Hygiene made easy...

If you keep and breed lovebirds, lovebirds cage hygiene is of utmost importance. That is why cages and aviaries need to be thoroughly cleaned on a regular basis.

Lovebirds cage hygiene needs to be maintained regularly and mostly depends on the size of the cage or aviary, the number of birds living in it, the season, and the amount of droppings, waste food etc.

If you want to save labor costs, you can decide to seive the ground cover of the cage or aviary. In this method, the droppings and waste food can be removed easily.

Any invisible waste cannot, however, be removed by sieving, so that the risk of contamination remains. When you clean the ground cover of the cage, shed, or night house, you should remove the entire layer and replace it with a completely new one.

The best-known and most frequently used type of ground cover for lovebirds is shell sand, but wood chips, clean river sand and even pebbles are sometimes also used as a ground cover.

The walls, bars, and the floor of the lovebird's cage or aviary should be disinfected on a regular basis. You can buy safe-cleaning agents from the pet shops for maintaining lovebirds cage hygiene. Perches, troughs, and baths should also be scrubbed out regularly with a disinfectant. The more hygienically you set about this, the less likely you are to be confronted with problems.