Straining after pooping

Status
Not open for further replies.

marhvee

Member
Hi, all -- my little baby seems to be having a pooping problem again.

Whenever he poops (which he does daily), he'll poop as normal, with no problem (no signs of straining), and the urate/poop will come out looking just fine (soft white urates, firm brown poop that holds its shape). However, he'll leave his vent open and sometimes it'll twitch as he continues to strain, and then he'll push out a tiny amount of blood before he closes up his vent and leaves. So there's no blood IN his stool, the blood comes from him straining at the end.

He's done this once before about a month and a half ago, when he was shedding his tail and had some shed stuck in his vent, which I assume was making him feel like something was there that he had to push out after pooping. After taking extra care to hydrate him, he finally shed that small piece and he was pooping great after. This time, he did start straining after pooping when he started shedding his tail again, but I made sure that there's no stuck shed in his vent this time, and now he's done shedding but still straining. I'm thoroughly puzzled as to what's going on.

Some background information on him: he's an almost 10-month-old hypo trans dragon and came under my care when he was approaching 7 months old. He was in a bad home where he was attacked by a larger dragon when he was 2 months old and was returned to his breeder. His breeder painstakingly treated his wounds and raised him up before he came under my care. At that point, he was still underweight (maybe 200+ grams, 16 inches long), but he's caught up quite a bit now (~435 grams and 18 inches long). He's been eating like a horse and recently went down to one feeding a day (this was before the current pooping problem), and is still healthily gaining weight.

Setup information: he's in a 40-gallon breeder tank from Exo Terra (36x18x18), with paper towels as his substrate. His basking bulb is a 100 watt halogen bulb attached to a lamp stand so I can adjust temps, and he's got a 10.0 Reptisun UVB bulb. I try to keep basking temps around 105-110 degrees Fahrenheit and his cool side below 85. He's getting dubias for his insects (one feeding a day, dusted with calcium with D3 every day except weekends, where he gets his multivitamins instead), and his greens consist of collards, turnips, butternut squash, and bell peppers.

As for things that might've changed when this behavior started cropping up again -- California has been unbearably hot recently. His basking temps started hiking up to the 115 F range, so today I adjusted the lamp so that he's back at 105 F again. Even his cool side reaches up to 86 F sometimes, so I've been trying to blast the AC and my fan to bring that down (though not by much). I'm wondering if not being hydrated enough is causing the issue, so I'm starting to give him daily baths, but he's not very cooperative with drinking water, no matter how much I drip on his snout. I'll continue to monitor him closely as I focus on hydrating him and bringing his temps down, but if anyone has any other ideas as to what's causing him to strain, please do let me know! I'm worried to bits about my little baby.
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

That is definitely strange! Poor guy, he had a rough start didn't he? At least he has a great
home now.
What type of thermometer are you using to measure the temps with? He could be slightly
dehydrated from it being so hot. If his urates are soft then it doesn't sound like he is too bad
off. A lot of them wont drink real well on their own or by dripping water on them either. You
will most likely have to work with him more to get him to drink water off of his snout.
You could get a fecal done to be sure he doesn't have worms or parasites, which oftentimes
do cause a bit of blood simply due to intestinal distress.
His setup sounds great & so does his diet. Do you have any pictures we could see of him
& the tank setup? How far is the Reptisun 10 tube from him & is it mounted on top of or under
neath of a screen top?

Tracie
 

marhvee

Member
Original Poster
Drache613":yl7t0bme said:
Hello,

That is definitely strange! Poor guy, he had a rough start didn't he? At least he has a great
home now.
What type of thermometer are you using to measure the temps with? He could be slightly
dehydrated from it being so hot. If his urates are soft then it doesn't sound like he is too bad
off. A lot of them wont drink real well on their own or by dripping water on them either. You
will most likely have to work with him more to get him to drink water off of his snout.
You could get a fecal done to be sure he doesn't have worms or parasites, which oftentimes
do cause a bit of blood simply due to intestinal distress.
His setup sounds great & so does his diet. Do you have any pictures we could see of him
& the tank setup? How far is the Reptisun 10 tube from him & is it mounted on top of or under
neath of a screen top?

Tracie
I'm using a temp gun to measure his temps, so it should be pretty accurate! I'll definitely continue to work with him to try and get some water into his system. I'm certainly considering getting him checked up at the vet, though given his history, he tends to stress out easily and have longer-lasting effects of stress than perhaps the average dragon, so I'm a little concerned that a vet visit might stress him. However, if he starts looking lethargic and/or his weight starts to drop, I know a vet nearby and will get him there ASAP. Here are some photos of his tank setup and his lights:

104301-2721204306.jpg

104301-9345865170.jpg

A small update: he did poop for me this morning in the bath, and there were no signs of blood this time. I'm hoping he'll keep that up!
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

That's a nice setup you have for him, it looks bright.
I'm glad to hear he didn't have any blood with his last stool though, hopefully he is feeling
better now.
Has he been eating well lately?
They can get quite stressed just from going to the vet, I agree.

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
 

marhvee

Member
Original Poster
Drache613":3mzkcefp said:
Hello,

That's a nice setup you have for him, it looks bright.
I'm glad to hear he didn't have any blood with his last stool though, hopefully he is feeling
better now.
Has he been eating well lately?
They can get quite stressed just from going to the vet, I agree.

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
He's been eating great, usually between 15-20 1-inch roaches per feed! He's also being better about drinking water -- he still won't drink in the bath but we seem to have fallen into a routine where he'll allow me drip some water onto his snout to drink after he's had his fill of the roaches for dinner. His poops seem to be getting better as well. He's had fewer incidences of straining/blood in the past few days, but I'll still monitor him carefully. I did notice that his femoral pores are starting to open up -- if that might have any bearing on his situation?
 

Drache613

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hello,

At least he has a great appetite it sounds like.
Hopefully a little extra hydration is all he needs to help out his system. If he hasn't had
anymore blood recently then it will most likely clear up all on it own. At least he is taking
water off of his little nose now, he will get used to that!
The femoral pores start to enlarge & get darker as they mature & during breeding season,
too.

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
 

marhvee

Member
Original Poster
Drache613":dg49n7k2 said:
Hello,

At least he has a great appetite it sounds like.
Hopefully a little extra hydration is all he needs to help out his system. If he hasn't had
anymore blood recently then it will most likely clear up all on it own. At least he is taking
water off of his little nose now, he will get used to that!
The femoral pores start to enlarge & get darker as they mature & during breeding season,
too.

Let us know how he is doing.
Tracie
Hello again! I ended up taking my baby to the vet to get down to the bottom of this business, and it turns out he has a high load of coccidia and also roundworms. They prescribed me some Albon to start with for the coccidia, and then Panacur for the roundworms once we're done with the Albon (so we're not doing 2 medications at once). I thought I'd post the dosages/instructions they gave me, just to check that they look okay:

Albon (for coccidia): 0.45 cc's every 24 hrs for 5 days, then 0.45 cc's every other day for 2 weeks
Panacur (for roundworms): 0.23 cc's every 24 hrs for 5 days, STOP, then repeat again in 2 weeks

edit: I forgot to mention -- he weighs in at 454 g, if that's helpful to know for his dosages.

He also appeared to be slightly dehydrated, and with the Albon, they urged me to stay on top of keeping him hydrated. They recommended that I let him drink some dragonfruit Power-C Vitamin Water for the vitamins and electrolytes during this time as I try to hydrate him.

I know coccidia is a tough one to get rid of, so I'll also be doing a thorough cleaning of his tank very soon, and will try to do a thorough cleaning at least every week while he's on the meds!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Latest resources

Latest posts

Latest profile posts

I miss you so much, Amaris 💔
What is a quick way to warm up a cold beardie? His heating element went out overnight and now he's very cold.
Pearl Girl wrote on moorelori1966's profile.
i feel so sad reading your about me 😢
Clapton is acclimating okay I think. He's quick as lightning so I'm not sure how much I should bring him out of his house yet. He's not at all interested in his salad though. I wonder if I should change what I'm giving him. Least he's eating his crickets.

Things to do:
Buy calcium powder
Material to raise surface for basking spot
Scenery decals for back of tank

Forum statistics

Threads
155,899
Messages
1,255,687
Members
75,965
Latest member
williamyoung
Top Bottom