Animal droppings offer insights into an animal’s diet and well-being. While typically brown, feces color can vary, with red droppings often sparking curiosity. This unusual coloration is frequently a natural outcome, reflecting what an animal has recently consumed.
Animals Producing Red Feces
Many animals can produce red-tinged feces, primarily as a result of their diet. Birds, such as robins and cedar waxwings, commonly excrete red or purplish droppings after consuming large quantities of red berries like mulberries, cherries, or yew berries. This is particularly noticeable when these fruits are abundant.
Similarly, bears, being omnivores with a diverse diet, frequently produce red or purplish scat in late summer and fall when berries like huckleberries, raspberries, or chokecherries are a major food source. Their digestive systems often struggle to fully break down these fruits, leaving behind visible seeds and fruit fragments.
Red foxes, while primarily carnivorous, also supplement their diet with plant matter, including berries and other fruits, particularly in summer and autumn. Their scat can appear reddish or purplish depending on the types of berries they have eaten.
Even humans can experience red coloration in their stool after consuming certain foods. Eating beets, for instance, can lead to red or pink stool, a phenomenon known as beeturia, due to pigments that are not fully absorbed.
Dietary Origins of Red Coloration
The red coloration in animal feces stemming from diet is primarily due to specific plant pigments that pass largely undigested. One major group of these pigments is anthocyanins, responsible for the red, purple, and blue hues found in many fruits and vegetables like berries, grapes, and red cabbage. When animals consume foods rich in anthocyanins, these compounds are often not completely broken down or absorbed in the gut. Instead, they retain their color as they travel through the digestive system and are subsequently excreted.
Another prominent pigment is betanin, which gives beets their distinctive vibrant red color. Betanin is known for its high uptake in the gut, meaning a significant portion can pass through without being fully metabolized.
The stability of these pigments can be influenced by factors like pH levels and transit time. For instance, betanin exhibits greater stability in a pH range of 3 to 7, which can help it retain its color through the intestines. The presence of these resilient plant pigments explains why a diet rich in certain fruits and vegetables can directly lead to red or reddish-purple droppings.
Beyond Blood: Understanding Red Droppings
Observing red animal droppings often raises concerns about blood, which can indeed cause red or black stool. However, when the animal has consumed a diet rich in red or purple fruits, the red color is a normal and healthy outcome of undigested plant pigments.
The natural pigments like anthocyanins from berries or betanin from beets are the most common non-alarming causes for this coloration. This dietary influence on fecal color provides valuable, non-invasive insights into an animal’s eating habits and the availability of food sources in its environment. For instance, the presence of berry-filled red scat can indicate a healthy foraging season.
While bright red or tarry black stool could signal internal bleeding and warrant closer inspection, a reddish tint that corresponds with the consumption of specific plants is typically benign.