In poultry production, an increase in water excretion rate is commonly referred to as
flushing, because urine and faeces are excreted simultaneously through the cloaca, making
it difficult to distinguish elevated urine output or polyuria from increased faecal water
loss or diarrhoea. In today’s intensive production systems even relatively minor nutritionally
induced osmoregulatory perturbation can cause flushing. Whilst this increase in water
excretion is often initially the result of a physiological diuresis or diarrhoea, nutritionally
induced pathological change may aggravate the polyuria by compromising water recovery,
or increase the severity of the diarrhoea by causing enteritis.