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.
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.