What can cause pale feces in a parakeet?

Question

Female Bourke parakeet just under 2 years old. Lone hand-tamed bird no mate but tries to play mommy anyways. She's on the skinny side due to egg production. (can feel the keel of her sternum.) But I offer her as much food as she'll eat.

She is currently incubating (nonfertile) eggs on the bottom of the cage. Yes I'm aware that incubating females have unusually infrequent and larger bowel movements - it's not the quantity that's worrying me, it's the color. Pale feces is often a sign of poor digestion.

In the cage: dish of seed mix. dish of "parakeet chow" - aka, the dry food for birds (she only picks at it rarely), and cuttlebone (calcium). I offer millet sprays and she attacks those quickly. I give her tastes of suitable people foods (I'm vegetarian so most of what I eat, she can too)... to my knowledge I've never given her anything "bad" or "poisenous."

Tips on how to get her to put on weight and/or figure out what's causing the pale feces?

Answer 1

To figure out what is causing the problem, make an appointment with an avian vet. They would be the only way to tell what is really going on.

Have you fed her any pasta? My birds love it. Just boiled noodles, no salt or sauce of any sort.

Is the parakeet chow a new food for her? If it is, go back to the old food. There may also be something wrong with it that we cannot preceve. Try emptying out the food and replacing it with new food.

If you find something that she will eat in the meantime, let her have it. It sounds like she is starving for some odd reason, so go with whatever she will eat.

Also talk to your vet about chronic egg laying. She may be having another medical issue going on besides the poor digestion.