Old World Parrots and a Prolapsed Coloaca
What is a cloaca? What functions does it perform? How can you tell if it is healthy? Understanding the cloaca is important to your bird’s health so let’s take a look at what it is.
Unlike their human counterparts, parrots and cockatoos process feces, urine and reproduction through one orifice called the “vent” or the “cloaca.” In it there are three compartments. One cavity is for feces, one for urine and urates, and the last is for an organ that produces cells to fight infections. The vessels that carry the reproductive functions also pass through the cloaca. The vent sphincter muscle controls the passage of waste or reproductive fluids. A bird’s waste should, over the course of the day, contain roughly equal parts of urine (clear), urates (white) and feces (green or brown depending on daily diet). In the morning it is not uncommon to see greater volume. This is true even though a bird should pass waste all through the night. You should take the time to learn what is normal for your companion bird and observe it daily. Poopology is the one of the best ways to determine the health of your companion.
Having only a single sphincter to control the passage of waste can be a problem. In the wild, this does not seem to be an issue. It is in captivity that we see the majority of problems. What human factors cause problems with the cloaca? The four most common are: hand rearing, delayed weaning or begging for food, attachment to one person and stool retention.
Breeder issues involved in the problem such as hand rearing and begging for food are difficult for us to combat. Science has proven that hand rearing is not required. Parent-raised birds handled by humans for 20 minutes a day come out psychologically well adjusted both as birds and as human companions.
Begging for food and delayed weaning are often issues that arise from a bird sold too early. Those taking the baby home don’t understand when to feed or when to wean the bird properly. Poop retention can come from improper potty training as in the “go on command” method of training. The best way to potty train a parrot is to teach it to move to a perch when it needs to go. Attachment to one person comes under sexual behavior and I will deal with that later in the article.
One severe problem is the cloacal prolapse. In a prolapse the muscles of the sphincter are no longer doing their job correctly. Part of the inner organs will fall through this opening and become exposed. How much protrudes depends on the remaining strength of the muscle. This leaves the bird open to infection.
Although there are surgical means of correcting the problem, prevention is the preferred method to deal with this issue. Surgery is not without risk. Putting birds under anesthesia requires quick and agile hands and a competent surgeon to complete the operation in the shortest time available.
Let’s examine some methods that can be used in surgery before looking at prevention. These are just the most common surgeries, others exist and you should discuss these options with your avian vets. The safest surgery is the least invasive. One method is to strengthen the exterior walls of the vent by removing small sections on each side and then sewing each side back together. This reduces the opening of the vent. Two problems might arise from this. It might make the bird strain if sewn too tightly and the further strain will cause the prolapse again. On the other hand, if sewn too loosely the problem occurs again for obvious reasons. Another method, the cloacapexy, stitches the cloaca back inside the body. The level of safety drops as we enter into the body to perform surgery. Scar tissue from the internal surgery may later cause problems in venting waste from the cloaca. As mentioned above, all waste functions and sexual functions pass through the cloaca so internal surgery is to be avoided whenever possible. There are actually several methods and variations on these surgeries. Your avian vets might only be familiar with a few of them.
Before any surgery is performed it is absolutely critical that the bird be tested for a bacterial infection. At times a prolapse is caused by such an infection and the bacteria must be dealt with before any surgery is performed. The spread of infection from such an operation could be life threatening. Just be sure to ask for “cytology” to rule out bacteria as a cause. Your vet will know what this means.
How do you help prevent a prolapse in cockatoos and Old World Parrots who are most susceptible to these? Handling your parrot or cockatoo in such a way as to avoid stimulating sexual response is the most important factor. Why is this true? It is because the cloaca will strain during mating behavior. Observing your companion’s cloaca during such an event will make the problem clear to you. The sphincter is clearly being strained. Pet your companion only on the head when mating behavior begins to arise; even then, keep such petting short. Avoid petting anywhere else. Give your companion a large play area and encourage playtime. Play, not petting, should take up most of a bird’s free time. Should a bird exhibit mating behavior by clucking, crouching and lifting its tail don’t try to repress the behavior but don’t encourage it either. Repressing it causes frustration and encouraging causes repeat behavior. Both repression and encouragement add fuel to the fire.
Am I saying that you cannot pet a cockatoo? Not at all. In the wild touching behaviors often lead to mating behavior. If it is not mating season then you might scratch your bird under the wings for half a minute. Don’t do it if mating behavior is evident. Much like your teen years there are times that playing miniature golf is safer than going to a movie. Just try to think of it that way.
During mating season, which might happen 4 or 5 times a year, increase toys and remove anything that might be used as nesting material. That’s a good guideline. Remember, though, that each bird is a study of one and that some birds might become severely frustrated without nesting material. Try to use common sense. You might find that you must strike a happy medium. My umbrella, Chloe, becomes frustrated if she has no boxes to nest in. I remove all but a small one when she begins a mating behavior cycle.
Learning the skills of applied behavior analysis, sometimes called reward training, will give you the tools you need to help your companion through these periods of frustration. If, after you have learned these skills, you find that you are still having problems then you might consider hormonal therapy. According to my sources hormonal therapy and drug therapy is useless without changing the environment that is causing the problem. In other words, if you pet the bird on the tail a shot from the vet will not help the situation. Medicine, in this case, only helps when used in a program where the bird is given needed changes in its environment to reduce sexual behavior. An antidepressant might help you when you are upset to calm down. Still, if you home is in the middle of a battle zone the valium will wear off an the same old problems will be there!
A bird that is happy playing by itself under supervision, has plenty of time out of its cage and has the opportunity to learn new skills regularly is less likely to have a cloacal prolapse. After all, that mirrors the wild environment to which they belong and wild environments work better to prevent this problem.
Sources:
Clinical Avian Medicine; Greg J. Harrison, DVM and Teresa L. Lightfoot, BS, DVM; Zoological Education Network, Spix Publishing, ©2006 pp 34,68,75-76
The BSAVA Manual of Psittacine Birds, Nigel Harcourt-Brown et. al, the British Small Animal Association, 2nd Ed., © 2005, p.112-117
(C) Copyright 2008 Don Scott, All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission.