Carnivora: Urine is passed clear but becomes turbid on decomposition, or if concentrated. With excess of fat in the food it may become opaque from floating oil globules, apart from the classic chyluria.

Pig: Fed on raw fresh vegetables the urine is clear, but if on cooked or dried vegetables, and especially if nitrogenous, it may show opacity.

Pathological: The horse’s urine is limpid and acid in polyuria; limpid and alkaline or neutral with modified phosphates. It may be morbidly turbid from excess of lime phosphate or sulphate, urea or other acid salts, exudates, leucocytes or pus. These usually indicate nephritis. Mucus and muco-purulent exudate suggest pyelitis or pelvic nephritis. Blood elements indicate nephritis, cystitis or urethritis. Debris of kidney tissue may indicate tuberculosis; tumors, etc.

Turbidity in other animals than solipeds is abnormal: examine the urine.

Consistency of Urine. Morbid urine may be gluey, sizy, syrupy, mucous, oily. If a horse’s urine is scanty a slight siziness may be normal and due to tenacious mucus from the pelvis of the kidney, and from the solution of mucin and epithelium in the alkaline fluid. Viscous, sizy, stringy, and tarry (pitchy) urine is found in pyelitis, pyelo-nephritis, or cystic catarrh, but not in polyuria owing to the presence of the solvent acid.

Odor of Urine. This is somewhat aromatic in horse and ox, disagreeable in the dog, and repulsively heavy in the cat. With polyuria the odor is less. If the urine has been retained and fermented it is ammoniacal, if there are ulcers or tumors it is fœtid, in diabetes it smells of acetone, after taking turpentine it has a violet odor, and after phenic acid, camphor, ether and other drugs it is variously modified.

Specific Gravity of Urine in ratio to water 1000:

Horse,1020to1050(1040)
Ox,1025„1045(1030)
Sheep; Goat,1015„1065(1040)
Dog,1020„1060(1040)
Pig,1005„1015(1010)
Cat,1020„1040(1030)

In the horse the urine may be 1001 to 1010 in polyuria, in chronic interstitial nephritis, and in a crisis of fever attended by diuresis. It may be 1050 to 1060 in glycosuria. Undissolved solids that are merely suspended in the urine do not affect its density.

A rough estimate of solids may be made by multiplying the last two figures of a specific gravity expressed in four figures by 2.33. The result approximates to the number of grammes of solids in 1000 cc.