Blood in my parakeets urine!

[tikkismama1039]

Hi, my parakeet is under a year old. She eats seeds and spray mullet. I found a little bit of dried blood on the paper, I dont know when it happened, She has not had anything to make her urine red. Could it be from stress, my house can get noisy with the kids and she is not used to me yet! I dont have the money for the vet at the moment, should I take her. What could it be? Is it something I did wrong?! Thanks!

 

[SailBoat]

Assure that the blood is in fact part of the stool! Inspect the stool checking both the semi-solid and the urine found around the cage or stand.
It is possible that it could be a bit of blood from a feather or a small cut, there is just no way to know.
However, any sign of Blood is never a good thing and finding its source is important.
If during your search, you find blood as part of a stool dropping, its a mad rush to your Avian Professional.

 

[wrench13]

Right, if you determine it is in fact blood,and its in her droppings, she needs a Certified Avian Vet asap.
Birds hide illness exceptionally well ( cuz the weak ones get picked off by predators), so by the time they exhibit really pronounced symptoms, its very hard or impossible to cure them.

 

[noodles123]

Agreed on getting her to a vet ASAP-- also, is she only eating seeds and spray millet, because that is not healthy for her liver etc. Are you feeding pellets or chop in addition to the seeds? Birds aren't meant to eat only seeds and when they do, their diet is lacking in nutrients and much too high in fat.

Do you know all about metal toxicity in birds? This can sometimes result in reddish droppings. Anything metal that she comes in contact with should be stainless...Zinc, brass, copper, tin, galvanized metals, lead etc are all very bad. Cages, toys, jewelry, household items etc= all possible risks for your bird.
Certain healthy foods can tint their poop and make it look more red than normal as well. Raspberries, blackberries and watermelon all alter my bird's poop color significantly.

Make sure you are not giving any bad foods to her (salt, excess sugar, preservatives, onion, garlic, leeks, chives, high-fat foods, avocado (due to toxin), chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, coffee of any kind due to a chemical found even in decaf, tomatoes, certain herbs, rhubarb, artificial sweeteners, raw honey, alcohol etc...birds are also lactose intolerant).

Make sure that you have no dark spaces or huts in the cage--- these can trigger nesting behavior and lead to egg-binding which can kill a bird. You want to make sure your bird is not hormonally triggered as much as possible to prevent egg-formation (even in single birds). Does your bird appear to be straining at all? You might just Google egg-binding so that you know what to look for.

Have you checked all of her feathers and the surface of her skin to see if she may have broken a blood feather or scratched herself somehow? I guess I'm asking if you are certain it came from her urine. Did you see it come out of her?

 

[tikkismama1039]

Thanks everyone. No I'm not sure actually if it came from the urine, like I said in my first post she is not use to me so she wont let me hold her. Thank you everyone so much for your info. I really appreciate.

 

[Laurasea]

My parakeets took to whole leaf romaine lettuce with gusto and without any work on my part. I just hang it, or stuff through bars and they go nuts. They eat lots of other veggies too, but romaine is their favorite.