My 3-year-old dragon has started having issues with very hard urate causing constipation. She eats a bowl of salad every day (mix of green beans, kale, turnip greens, bell pepper, chard, etc), and then every other day I feed crickets (usually 6-10 large) and 5 superworms. For a while she would come out of her tank every day and run around and was pooping daily. Then she became more reluctant to come out and the pooping dwindled to about once a week. When she does poop, she's obviously straining, and eventually calcified urate shoots out followed by a huge pile of healthy poop.
Today she struggled for so long she gave up and I had to massage her and help her to get it out. I'm worried she might prolapse or become impacted if this continues. Any ideas about the cause of the constipation and what I might change to help her? I feel like she should be well-hydrated with her diet but maybe she isn't.
Lay off the super worms for now --- rinse the greens before feeding - and make sure the basking temps are 95-100 taken w/ a digital probe thermometer NO stick ons they are inaccurate and NO coils for a UVB ---- this plays everything in digestion and getting it started -- lay off the calcium for now too -- the UVB is what helps absorb/ synthesize the calcium and coils are inadequate
Thanks, Karrie. Basking temps are good, measured with a probe and she has a tube UVB. I'll take a superworm break for a while. Should I be giving her more regular baths as well or not necessarily?
Feed her some canned pumpkin or unsweetened applesauce -- thats going to help her go to the bathroom - usually for impaction but it will help push what ever is in there out - you can add some olive oil like a drop to that and make sure shes hydrated --- how much calcium are you giving her?
Are you giving d 3 or regular calcium w out D 3 and no phosphorus? No more baths its going to dry her scales out and where is the UVB in the tank distance and placement please?