Chalky Urate - Hydration problem?

[Ethelia]

Hello all,

My question regards Ruben, my 10 month old boisterous boy.

A little background on the problem:
Ruben has proven to have a delicate digestive system, which I believe has something to do with the fact that Rube is on his stomach 95% of the time as he is missing two legs on one side of his body.
When I brought Ruben home at 3 months he was quite nastily impacted with sand, but we managed to clear all of that gunk out of him.
For the next month or so he had obvious digestive issues, passing large chunks of undigested veg and bugs. In time it settled down, but locusts did prove to be an issue for him, often seeing chunks of locust in his bowel movements.

After about 3 months at home with me I would say his digestion was back to normal and other than an odd incident here and there.
He has a bath every day which he passes his bowel movement in. Usually he will poop within 5-10 minutes of going in the bath, and so doesnt get a long soak, but every two days I will refill the tub and he'll get a nice 20 minute soak.

The problem:
Ive had issues in the past with him having chalky urates but they have come and gone, however recently they seem to be quite persistant.
Rube has always had to strain to pass his bowel movements but recently he seems to be giving it two or three great heaves before a urate with poop attached SHOOTS out of him in the water.
The poop part of the bowel movement is fine, but the urates are getting increasingly solid.


So what do I do about this to try and soften them up?

The only ideas that spring to my mind are dehydration or too much calcium.

Calcium wise he gets a dusting 4 days a week and is under a 100w MegaRay bulb.

Hydration wise he is in the bath daily, which I understand to be the best form of hydration for a dragon. He will only drink from the bath himself maybe once every two weeks.
My issue is how else to hydrate him if you think this may be a factor?
Ruben is housed on toweling to help him move around so I cant really mist him without dampening his towel. I toyed with the idea of putting in some foliage JUST to spritz it?
He does not lick from a syringe without being suprised. Ive only managed the whole "dripping on his nose" thing in the bath and maybe twice in his viv.

Any ideas would be appriciated to make my monsters life a little easier ^_^

Holly

 

[beardie parents]

I'd like an answer to this one also, as Speedy's and Zoom's urates are hard. Speedy pooped early this pm, just after we returned from church and his urate seemed hard also.

Thanks for anyone who can help Holly and me.

Lori

 

[crickest]

We have a four to five month old female. She has at least one poop per day and sometimes as many as four. I never bathe her and have never seen her drink from her water dish. However, I do feed her squash baby food (organic) twice a day from an eye dropper. She eats from one and a half to two and a half droppers full before she is given any other food. She also has greens available to her all day long. The water in the squash seems to be her primary liquid and her poops look great and are very moist. Her urates are bright white most of the time.

I don't know if you've tried hand feeding Ruben some squash or not, but it might be worth a shot.

 

[Ethelia]

Thank you for your suggestion but ruben already gets squash as part of his daily diet.
I would feed babyfood if it is required but Rube already requires all his live feeders to be handfed because he cannot eat from a bowl because of his disability, and Im about to start a full time job so i wont be around during the day to do both.

So BUMP!
Holly

 

[crickest]

I'm out of ideas. I would be interested in hearing more of Ruben's story. . . is he disabled because he was born that way, or was he cannibalized when he was young? It sounds like you have your hands full. I hope someone else has an idea to help him.

 

[Ethelia]

Hi there Crickest,
Ruben was attacked by his clutchmates at about 2months old and is a prime example why dragons should not be housed together.
Rubens story from the day I brought him home at 3 months old to today can be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=95384&hilit=
I try to post pictures every other day to show his progression, so if it seems a bit daunting to read the lot just have a look through at the pictures ^_^
He has been a challenging little monster but he is my pride and joy

Holly

 

[Drache613]

Hello,

How much calcium dust does he get each time you dust? Does he eat enough vegetation?
If not, then, increasing his vegetation would greatly help him out. Also, try giving oral fluids, daily, with a plastic dropper or a plastic syringe. It is extremely easy to dropper train them. Make it a habit, every morning you get him out, start with a nice flavored juice diluted with water. Once he begins to get that every morning, he will love it. It can be done, but, it just takes some patience. Once he is dropper trained, it will be very simple to keep him hydrated.
Until then, try dropping back the calcium to 3 times a week for a few weeks to see if his urate chalkiness disappears or subsides. You definitely do not want them that hard, otherwise, it puts him at risk for prolapse if he has to strain that hard to go potty.

Tracie

 

[Ethelia]

Thank you so much Tracie.

He gets two feedings of bugs a day. He usually consumes the most in the first session (8ish superworms). His first feeding is dusted with calcium 4 days a week.

Veg wise he still loves his greens. He eats a reasonable bowl of escarole endive and rocket every day with squash/beans/asparagus etc on top. He has always favoured his greens over his bugs.

I have already started the dropper battle, but I hadnt thought about making it into a routine. Ruben is pretty grogey in the mornings, would I be best waiting until he's woken up properly or doing it in the evening insted?
Rube also seems to detest orange and cranberry juice that I usually have in. He'll take one lick and then he will physically move away from me to make sure he doesnt get anymore.
Could you recommend another flavoured juice which he might be more susceptable too?

Since he has started straining when going to the bathroom his appetite has decreased.
He's currently eating protien every other day but is still keeping up with a bowl or two of veg a day.

Holly

 

[sunkist]

I would definitely up his time to soak maybe. I know my guys get like that if they don't get their daily baths. Right now I've been getting a lot of them because I've just been busy. You could try apple juice, it's probably sweeter for him. I would try the droppers while his groggy because he may not resist as much as if he had a clear head to him.