An article about uric acid and gout by Allen Repashy i found interesting

[xp29]

I was looking for info on uric acid levels in banded crickets vs dubias. I came across this artical and thought i would link it here in case anyone else would like to read it.

ARTICLES :: Can Feeder Insect Diets Contribute To Gout In Reptiles? 2010 - Repashy Ventures - Specialty Pet Products

The Roach Revolution Revelation A theory about Reptile Gout The current trend of the increased usage of Cockroaches as feeders may have some unforeseen effects on Reptile Nutrition There are several reasons that Roaches have increased in popularity as feeders First the Cricket virus that nearly

www.store.repashy.com

 

[Claudiusx]

Yup, it's a very interesting read and what made me start realizing years ago the correlation on this website of the massive increase in gout cases to the massive increase in the popularity of dubia roaches.

It also made me reformulate my dubia chow to a VERY low (comparatively speaking) protein % when compared to what most people have commercially available.

-Brandon

 

[xp29]

Seems to me feeding low protein would make dubias more a viable feeder, also maybe not feeding the adults to your reptiles at all might make them more viable (for the reason adults slower metabolism lets them store more uric acid than younger roaches that need more energy for growing)
Personally i don't feed alot of dubias anyway, my beardies don't like them that much.

 

[Claudiusx]

Seems to me feeding low protein would make dubias more a viable feeder

It would, along with your suggestion of younger dubias as the dubia hasn't had as much time to build up a UA storage.

The problem is breeding rates plummet with lower protein chow. I've seen it in my own colonies and I believe if Alan doesn't mention it in that article, he does in others.

If you aren't breeding your roaches, a very low protein diet is still going to result in a high protein feeder insect. I'd suggest more table scraps and veggie type foods for owners who are simply buying and feeding.

-Brandon

 

[Axil]

I really enjoyed that article. I was able to find this graph in the study referenced about German cockroaches:

I think the link to the study is dead now, i wasn't able to follow the article to it, or i'm misremembering how i got there.

I wish I had a better understanding of what these numbers mean when compared to the UA levels of processing protein. Also, i'm not sure if UA ingested directly may be more problematic than UA broken down from protein. It is possible that some metabolic mechanism exist to in some way limit the digestion of additional protien, that would be ineffective against UA already free in the insect.

@xp29 did you have any luck finding the UA content of banded crickets? I'm unclear as to whether free UA is only present in roaches, or if it just present in larger amounts than other insects. I'd imagine some amount of UA has to exist in a cricket that hasn't passed all the waste from the protein it digested yet, but is that half what is present in a Dubai? 10%? 1%? I have no idea, and that would be useful to know.

@Claudiusx around what protein level did you settle on? Or is it less a percentage, and more you just feed things you know are low in protein? I've been using Dubai Chow, or whatever dubai.com is calling thier roach food. I believe it is 17% protein. They reference that number in an article on their site that initially pointed me to the repashy article.

They also claim they've seen no indications the incidents of Gout in Bearded Dragon's are increasing... They make no mention of how they went about looking for any such trend. And... unsurprisingly they don't think you need to worry much about feeding Dubai to your Dragon. In fairness they do recommend using a variety of feeders.

From the above linked article:

make sure to offer a wide variety of different feeder insects, alternating between high-protein feeders and lower-protein feeders.

If Claudiusx harping on the importance of variety in a Dragon's diet hasn't convinced someone yet. The fact that a website with Dubai in the name is telling you not to feed only Dubai, ought to be a wake up call.

 

[Claudiusx]

@Claudiusx around what protein level did you settle on?

I tried 4, 6 8 and 12% mixes over the course of like two years.

12% by far had the best results for breeding out of the mixes. Around 8% is what I settled on. At that percentage, breeding was keeping up with use.

At 4% I had massive die offs of babies. Breeding wasn't effected immediately, but the babies were not making it past their first or second stage of life it seemed. After a few months, no new babies were even being produced.

I didn't understand it at the time, but it makes sense that the adults at first were using their UA storage to supplement the lack of protein, allowing them to continue breeding. The babies weren't getting enough protein, and were dying. Eventually, the UA stores ran out and breeding stopped all together.

-Brandon

 

[Axil]

After a few months, no new babies were even being produced.

That is good to know. That seems to suggest that gutloading your roaches with a low protein diet for a couple days or even a week is not going to significantly diminish the UA they are carrying.

Which probably ought to be expected, the ability to store UA wouldn't be as useful to the roaches if it only got them through a famine period of a couple days.

 

[xp29]

I didn't find the percentage in the banded crickets, i couldn't wade through the advertising beast that we call the internet to find anything useful about the crickets. Ghan specializes in them, maybe they would have that info, i dunno.
As far as feeding, to my way of thinking. We need 3 bins set up for dubias. One for breeders, one for feeders and one as a nursery.
Feed you breeders however much they want to keep them breeding, the feeders (maybe actually sorted into 2 bins) cut the protein to nill give them time to be forced into using ua reserves, move them into the 2nd bin to be fed and to make room for income young adults. The babies give enough protein to keep them growing.
I would think we would probably need to keep accurate logs so we don't loose track. It would be a lot more work to keep dubias this way (at least during the learning curve) (And sorting them) but if it keeps our beardies from developing gout, it might be worthwhile.

 

[xp29]

Dang, I think i just suggested sending dubias to detox good grief lol

 

[Axil]

Well if you're able to get decent yields at 8% protein, and if dubai roaches track pretty well with the German cockroach data, your probably looking at a very low UA level to begin with.

The other thing I found in my travels that was interesting is that Dragob UA levels peak at 24 hours after feeding, and return to baseline by 48hours. At least in adult dragons, which is what the study was done on.

So if you limit to roaches to 2-3 times a week, and your Dragon's kidneys are functioning properly you ought to be able to prevent UA levels from building up in your dragon if they aren't spiking high enough to cause problems after a single feeding.

This is something I've not been doing with Beebz he usually gets roaches in at least one of his two daily feedings (and used to get them up to three times a day). UA levels may come down faster in juveniles as I would think they would metabolize food faster as they grow.

Also as I think you mentioned younger roaches
should have less UA stored. They likely have higher metabolisms than adult roaches as well and may reduce thier UA levels more quickly when thier protein is restricted.

All this to say if you're feeding an adult dragon roaches fed 8% protein, spacing those feedings at least 48hours apart, and using mostly immature roaches as your feeders... you're probably going to have a hard time giving your Dragon gout unless there is some other factor affecting the kidneys.

Also as I mentioned I have done a poor job following most of these safety measures. Feeding up to 100 small roaches daily did not cause gout in during Beebz baby days.

It's not somthing I would recommend to a new owner with a baby dragon, but it leads credence to the idea that a young, healthy, growing dragon can deal with a lot of protein and UA if thier kidneys are functioning properly.

 

[xp29]

I think very good hydration helps mitigate ua levels also. Chronic dehydration causes kidney and liver problems all by itself. I'm guessing it also increases the chances of developing gout as well. So basically if your feeding good variety and giving plenty of hydration your dragon can hold his own. It seems like it always comes back to good husbandry.

 

[Claudiusx]

The theory behind why younger roaches have less UA in their system has always been simply because it takes time for UA to be built up in the system. Which would make sense with the findings that adults have higher levels of UA. This kind of goes in line too with what we see in dragons. Dragons don't develop issues until a year or two down the line, if all things stayed consistent and the source of UA or too high of protein persisted.

It's an interesting theory about the young ones having a faster metabolism. I'm sure they do, but I don't know if that's the major factor at play with younger roaches having lower UA.

It doesn't matter the why I guess in our situation. All that really matters is that the younger nymphs have less UA in their systems, which is good for our dragons.

-Brandon

 

[xp29]

I wonder if there is some test or system that could be bought for home use (without being clobbered over the head at checkout) that would allow us to check and log ua in dubias. It would be interesting to have several colonies and track how the ua levels responds to different diets and ages.

 

[Claudiusx]

I wonder if there is some test or system that could be bought for home use (without being clobbered over the head at checkout)

I've had it up to here with trying to find random at home testing systems without being clobbered over the head at checkout...

-Brandon

 

[Axil]

Dragons don't develop issues until a year or two down the line, if all things stayed consistent and the source of UA or too high of protein persisted.

This indicates there is a piece I'm missing as the research I'd done made me lean towards gout caused by an acute dosage of UA, overwhelming the Dragon's ability to deal with it.

My understanding is that gout in humans tends to be episodic often occurring after drinking a lot of alcohol (especially beer as it's high in purines) which will cause dehydration, and eating foods like shellfish that are again purine rich.

In this study on bearded dragons, they found UA levels to fall back to baseline levels after 48 hours of fasting. They were feeding crickets, and the purpose of the study was to find the appropriate time to test for baseline UA levels, so it may take longer to process higher amounts of UA after ingesting roaches. Even so, I would think that a few low-protein days should "reset" UA levels in a Dragon with healthy kidneys.

Now it may be that repeated exposure to high levels of UA that are not enough to cause an episode of gout will damage the kidneys and over time create a scenario where gout is more likely. That could explain why gout would occur after years of being fed a high protein diet. It could also be the case that as Dragons age their kidneys become less effective at processing UA for other reasons, and a diet that was well tolerated for years ceases to be as kidney function declines.

*edit* Here is the punchline for the study on UA levels i linked:

Results​

Bearded dragons of the treatment group had significantly higher plasma uric acid concentration at the 24-hour time point (mean ± SD, 6.5 ± 1.2 mg/dL), compared with the 0-hour time point within the same group (2.5 ± 1.5 mg/dL; P < 0.001) and with the control group (2.6 ± 1.2 mg/dL; P = 0.005) at the 24-hour time point (Figure 1). For the treatment group, plasma uric acid concentrations at the 4-hour and 48hour time points were not significantly different from the time 0 concentration. For the control group, no changes in plasma uric acid concentration were detected among time points.