Last night and tonight I noticed something odd with Jerry's poops when he's out - they are very tiny, like half the size of a regular budgie poop. The color and consistency look normal, and there is good separation between feces and urates. His vent area is clean.

His appetite appears normal, he is eating his fresh foods and seed mix, and I have not changed anything in his diet. When looking at his cage papers tonight, the majority of the poops were normal sized, but there were some of the small ones too. I changed his papers so I can monitor the new droppings in the morning. I also weighed him and he weighed in at 32 grams, which is normal for him.

I think I've just figured out the source of this, but wanted to post anyways to see what anyone else thinks (and because I'm paranoid about everything!).

Jerry "helps" me clean food and water dishes every night by watching on my shoulder and the last few nights when the faucet is running, he runs down my arm and drinks right from the faucet. He took a good few drinks.

I know budgies don't drink a lot overall, and Jerry usually drinks first thing in the morning. I *think* the small poops are because of his drinking from the faucet? He usually doesn't go for a drink when he's out (or if he does, he goes back to his cage, he always has water available for him). I don't always notice his every poop when he's out because he's all over the place.

I don't think (as of yet) that he is drinking much more than usual, but I will try to watch for that.

Does this sound like a reasonable assumption or should I be concerned yet? Before I put him in his cage for the night I watched a couple more poops and they were small and the latter ones had more urine in them - normal, clear urine - but that would be normal since he had a good drink shortly before.

Are you meaning just the solid part is smaller, or the amount of poop as a whole is less?

If you mean the former, is it smaller in circumference, shorter...

Everything is smaller, the feces and urates. Usually the feces form nice little circles with the white urates in the middle (he usually has perfectly shaped little circular poops), but the feces didn't even make a full circle (but they were also not stringy) and the amount of urates was less too.

This morning I checked his papers and there were some normal sized poops, so that made me feel better. His big morning poop was normal looking, and I'll have to check his papers when I come home from work.

And I noticed he took his usual morning drink when they woke up.

Hmmm...Dakota, and Ollie especially, have always had poop in varying sizes and I've never thought much about it. Ollie has a big one in the morning, and then they are much smaller after that. Sometimes she will poop twice in a short period of time, say 15 minutes, and they will be really tiny. Other times she will wait 30-40 minutes if she's busy playing or preening, and they will be a little bigger. I've never really equated it to how much she's eaten, but rather, how long she goes between pooping.

Lulu's poops can vary in size too. Jerry's have always been so perfect every time (budgie poops are so nice and easy to deal with!) that this had me wondering.

I see...well I don't know anything about budgies, sorry! Maybe somebody who has them will chime in.

I'd be freaked out too if suddenly his poop changed.
Lake is pretty regular. Only once he had wet poop for a day, after jumping into my morning cereal & drinking up some honey milk. I washed out his waterer & cleaned it with cider vinegar & put a little in the water. He was OK the next day.

Laker's water is filtered. Our water comes from Lake Ontario & is very chlorinated. How's you local water? Does he get tap water?

Glad to hear it's OK today.

We do give all of our animals tap water and have never had a problem. I've thought about switching to bottled spring water but have not. We have filtered water in the house that my husband drinks, but he doesn't think that giving the animals that is good because it is lacking essential minerals.

I just think that the fact that he's taken a big drink when out with me has affected his poops - he is flying around a lot lately and previously I did not notice him taking a big drink while he's out - I just hope he's not drinking much more than usual. Seeing the cage papers this evening should give me a better indication of what's going on.

My budgies pops change size all the time, depending what thay are doing or eating. Jerry running to taste tap water are you sure he was drinking and not playing? He may want to take a bath in the sink, but he changed his mind because the flow was too strong. Our sun only likes to play in the water if the stream is not too strong. The budgies dont care for running water they like a big water dish.

Jerry was definitely drinking and not playing, he was right on my arm doing so. When he runs down my arm I make sure the water temp is ok and I invited him to bathe in my hand (that's how he bathes when in the shower), but he just wanted a drink and flew back to my shoulder when finished. I do think the running water fascinates him

Jerry's poops generally do not change a great deal in size - except for his morning poops, which are always larger since he holds it all night.