Why is Budgie Poop Sticking to Bottom? How to Help?

A messy poop sticking to the bottom is typically a negative sign for your budgie’s health.

Why is budgie poop sticking to the bottom? Although it mainly indicates a digestive problem, there could be different reasons, such as dehydration, polyuria, kidney issues, and parasitic or bacterial infections. Typically dietary issues caused by an all-seed diet or excessive consumption of fruits can cause the feces to stick to the vent. If you notice it early, you can get the condition successfully treated. To help your budgie in this condition, you need to clean his bum, cage, and all accessories.

Meanwhile, you must also investigate what’s going wrong. You can check your budgies by a vet to see if there’s an illness, such as infection or kidney disorders. However, you can solve dietary or dehydration issues with proper diet and care. Check out the article to know what more you can do.

Why is Budgie Poop Sticking to the Bottom?

If budgie poop gets stuck to the bottom, there must be an underlying condition to that. A dirty bum could be caused by watery poop or a large number of feces clogging the butt, which can happen because of the following reasons:

Feeding on All-Seed Diet

If your budgie is on an all-seed diet for longer, it’ll likely pass on a pasty poop that can stick to its vent or nearby feathers. Seed diets don’t contain all the nutrients your budgie needs.

The all-seed diet has less water content and too much fiber, which can cause them to develop inconsistent bowel movements, affecting their droppings. Another sign that your budgie needs dietary diversity is its dull and discolored feathers.

Excessive Fruits

Consuming fruits in excessive amounts, like grapes, strawberries, and watermelon, can turn your budgie’s consistency of poop into watery. The lack of firmness in the feces can make it stick to the bottom, leading to a dirty bum.

Although your budgie’s diet can include 10 to 15% of fruits and veggies, it’s recommended to have more vegetables than fruits. It’s because vegetables have more nutritional value while fruits are more sugary.

Dehydration

Dehydration is another common cause of dry and pasty poop sticking to the bottom. Budgies only drink clean water, so make sure your budgie has continuous access to the drinking water. Also, give them a tiny amount of fresh fruit every day. A budgie that eats fresh fruit in a small amount every day has a lower chance of dehydration than the ones fed an all-seed diet.

Different Digestive Issues

A poor diet, stress, infections, and parasites such as worms or giardia can cause stomach upsets or other digestive problems to your budgie. Some issues could lead to diarrhea, where your budgie will pass watery and sticky poop frequently.

In other cases, your budgie may drop thick and uneven feces, including pieces of undigested food. It can also be caused by Proventricular dilatation disease (PDD), which affects your bird’s digestive tract and nerves.

Diseases

Following diseases can also cause your budgie to pass on sticky poop.

Infections: Veterinary Clinics of North America addresses parasitic and bacterial infections as one of the causes of watery poop that sticks to the bottom or nearby tail feathers. If your budgie has an intestinal tract infection, you should see signs like loss of appetite, weakness, fluffed feathers, and vocalization change.
Kidney Disorders: The sticky and wet dropping could also be caused by kidney problems. Apart from infections, kidney disorders such as metabolic disorders, blockages, tumors, excess nutrition, and toxic insults can be behind the abnormal feces of your budgie.
Polyuria: Polyuria or excessive urine production is a medical condition where budgies lose the ability to control passing poop and urine. In such conditions, the liquid component can increase in the droppings leading to a sticky and messy poop around the vent.

How to Help Your Budgie in Such a Case

If you want to help your budgie get normal and healthy poop, here’s what you can do:

Don’t provide all-seed diets to your budgie as they’re nutritionally incomplete. Always keep vegetables and fruits in a small amount to improve their nutritional value.
Proper hydration can prevent cakey and firm stools. So provide enough fresh water and also add fruits such as bananas, apples, melon, berries, grapes, and oranges in tiny quantities to your budgie’s diet. One or two thumbnail-size pieces of fruit per day can help your budgie’s digestion and bowel movement.

VCA Hospitals says kidney problems and infections causing digestive issues are common in budgies. To prevent this you must always keep their cages clean. According to CDC, you should position the cage so that the food, dropping, and feathers can’t spread germs between them. Also, don’t overcrowd or stack the cages. Moreover, isolate an infected bird and start its treatment under an avian vet in a separate cage.

Also read: Why Is Your Budgie Sneezing?

How to Clean Your Budgie’s Bum

A birdbath can help most budgies keep themselves clean; however, they can’t clean cakey feces. So they’ll probably need assistance from the owners. Here’s how you can clean poop from your budgie’s bum.

Firmly hold your budgie with a soft towel so they’re not hurt.
Dip a cotton ball in the lukewarm water and wipe off the feces traces from the vent and nearby feathers.
If the poop is stubborn and doesn’t come off, sink your budgie in a bowl filled with lukewarm water. Then massage the bum and feathers to let the poop traces completely come off.

Finally, tap dry them with a towel.

How to Keep the Budgie Cage Clean

Since there could be traces of poops left in the cage, you must do a deep cleaning of all its accessories once in a while. To do that:

Put the budgie in a clean, separate cage or room.

Remove all the accessories, including food, dishes, toys, and a water bowl. Clean all these accessories using a detergent separately before you put them back.
Scrub the cage with warm soapy water.
Use a detergent to scrub and remove feces, especially from perches.

Spray the cage with parrot-friendly sanitizer or disinfectant.
Rinse the cage with water.
Finally, put it under the sun or fan and let it completely dry before putting back your budgie and accessories.

FAQs

Let’s look at some common FAQs answered here.

1. Is budgie poop toxic?

Generally, the budgie poop isn’t toxic; however, it could grow bacteria or fungi if left for too long. When it gets dried, it may get aerosolized when your budgie flap wings and is eventually breathed in, leading to different respiratory issues.

2. What does a budgie’s sticky poop look like?

The abnormal or sticky poop in budgies could have light color feces that are rusty brown or mustard yellow. Feces could be larger or have a mushy, watery, or coarse texture. Sometimes they contain a foul odor, especially when there’s undigested food left.

Related: Budgie Beak Discoloration

Final Words

It’s not a good sign to see your budgie’s poop sticking to the bottom. In normal cases, budgies will have perfect stools where they can easily clean themselves with a birdbath. So if you see sticky poop, check out the causes discussed above, such as an all-seed diet, restricted access to fresh drinking water, excessive fruit consumption, digestive issues, kidney disorders, polyuria, or other infections or diseases.

You should get your budgie checked by an avian vet. Take proper care until his poop returns to normal condition. Clean his dirty bum, cage, toys, food dish, and perches regularly. It can prevent the germs from spreading. Provide a balanced diet and medications if given by the vet. In most cases, some extra TLCs and treatment can improve the condition and help your budgie release perfectly normal feces.