A Major Mitchell’s cockatoo came into the clinic with a history of having not eaten for several days and having milky droppings. The bird was a little depressed but still in good body condition and was quite alert.

The concerning thing was the bird was passing urates and urine but absolutely no faecal matter. Although birds often pass urates and urine separately from the faeces it does not take long for some sort of faeces to be passed. On the floor of the cage was a fair amount of white milky urate but no faeces; what the owner had seen was urate – not faeces but still “droppings”. Sometimes our terminology causes confusion!

When the bird was examined it had a slightly swollen abdomen and a mildly increased respiratory rate. Otherwise the bird was relatively normal.

I took a blood sample, and arranged for an X-ray, as I was concerned the bird might have had an intestinal blockage due to chewing things. It was a pet bird and was notorious for chewing things around the house.

The blood sample was normal, but the X-ray showed some extensive changes in the abdomen of the bird. The bird’s liver was enlarged, the gut was pushed up into air sac spaces and there was evidence of distension of part of the gut. These are not good signs! After talking to the owners, and telling them the chances were not good, we decided to go ahead and operate to see if it was possible to save the bird.

Surgery showed the bird had a mass of adhesions in its abdomen with the centre being a burst abscess in the pancreas. The adhesions had stopped the gut from working and the bird was doomed. The changes in the abdomen were so severe it defies belief that the bird could have looked so well.

This case is a classic example of how birds hide the signs of severe illness right to the end. The abscess and adhesions must have been forming for at least 7 – 10 days, with total blockage occurring 2 – 3 days before the bird was presented at the clinic. There was absolutely no way this poor bird could recover from the extensive damage in its gut.