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Do Birds Pee?

Do Birds Pee?
From Wikipedia, in its entry for Cloaca:

All birds, reptiles, and amphibians possess this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces, unlike placental mammals, which possess two separate orifices for evacuation.


Do Birds Pee?
According to Galeanda on AnswerBag.com:

Not in the sense you are thinking about. When they poop they excrete both kinds at the same time but it isn't liquidy like urine. If you look closely (and I know you don't want to:-) you will see that there are two different colors of excrement, white or almost pale greenish and a darker bit in the center. That whitish part is like uric acid. It's their way of getting rid of the nitrogen-containing wastes formed during the breakdown of proteins in their blood. Urea needs lots of water to be safely expelled from the body. Uric acid is pretty safe in its drier form as it doesn't dissolve in water very easily. SO not all animals pee but all need to get rid of their toxic waste somehow. Birds just do it in a way to conserve their water in the bodies.


Do Birds Pee?
According to skyespirit86 on Answers.Yahoo.com:

Birds don't wee. Their bodies have adapted to be as light as possible- in every single way. Their bones are quite hollow for example, and they have evolved not to have a bladder- as a bladder full of urine would be too heavy. So the nitrogenous waste they produce has little moisture and is excreted with the poo from the same opening. It has the same contents of urine (except the water), and when you see a bird dropping it is the white part.
Birds really are light as a feather. Their reproductive organs shrink when they are not breeding so as to reduce weight, and some birds even lose brain cells to make them lighter- regrowing them again when it is time for them to migrate or something so they are clever enough to find their way.


Do Birds Pee?
According to Mike O'Conner, owner of Bird Watcher's General Store:

In order to gain flight birds can't afford any significant addtioinal weight. Laying eggs saves them from a long and chubby pregnancy. They also don't carry their young in pouches, produce gallons of milk for nursing, or store used beer in their bladders, like some mammals do. The weight of a beer-filled bladder, or a bladder filled with any other liquid, would impact a bird's flying ability. In order to prevent such a problem, birds have evolved a method of waste removal that doesn't involve using a bladder, which is lucky for them because they don't have one.
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The stereotypical bird dropping, the white splotch with the black bull's eye in the middle, is a bird's version of both poop and pee. With birds there is no "number one" and "number two." It's one complete package. (However, I'm not sure what number birds call their combination. I'll have to get back to you on that one, Norm.) I should also note that the white uric acid is not very water-soluble. That may explain why I have so much trouble cleaning it off the hood of my Corvette, or at least I would have trouble cleaning it off if I had a Corvette.


Do Birds Pee?

Here's a picture of a hummingbird peeing, on Flickr:

Click for larger version

Do Birds Pee?
According to Colibri at TheStraightDope.com:

Birds urinate, it's just that their urine is semisolid rather than liquid.

Birds excrete their nitrogenous wastes, derived mostly from the breakdown of proteins, in the form of uric acid rather than urea as mammals do. Unlike urea, uric acid is almost insoluble in water, and is excreted in the form of crystals that form a semisolid white paste. Not needing to store liquid wastes, birds lack a bladder. Instead urine passes from the ureters into the cloaca, a common chamber for the passage of digestive and urinary wastes, as well as for reproductive products. A bird dropping usually contains both white uric acid crystals, and a concentrated mass of digestive wastes such as insect cuticle or seeds.


Do Birds Pee?
According to infogirl at Unasked.com:

Unlike mammals, birds do not urinate. Their kidneys extract nitrogenous wastes from the bloodstream, but instead of excreting it as urea dissolved in urine, they excrete it in the form of uric acid. They also excrete creatine rather than creatinine as in mammals. Uric acid has a very low solubility in water, so it emerges as a white paste.


Do Birds Pee?
According to Fh_shfqat at BlurtIt.com:

No birds do not urinate. They lack a urinary bladder like mammals with ostrich as an exception. Urine as we know it, contains urea and is in a liquid form. Whereas, birds excrete uric acid which is not soluble in water and is excreted as a white paste from their cloaca when mixed with other liquids.


Do Birds Pee?
Whoa... a new question for us all to ponder: DO BIRDS FART?

Check out an excerpt from this thoughtful consideration of the topic:

So only a deaf person who also lacked an ability to detect odors could possibly have gone through life never experiencing the phenomenon of farting, and only a human without an operational mind could possibly have gone through life never once wondering what the heck farts are all about...