Sentence:  And when health problems struck, as they inevitably would, no matter how attentive the farmer, the tree had to be nursed until it was better. ... Jeez, and I'd thought mothering week-old orphan calves back in Scotland had been a headache! Still, at least a tree couldn't <WSD>skitter</WSD> diarrhoea down the front of your jeans, or bellow to be bucket-fed warm milk in the middle of the night, so that was a bonus. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To suffer from a bout of diarrhea; to produce thin excrement.