urates help again

[Missi]

I am going to try this again , if anyone has any ideas please let me know .

Jim only poops once a week now , he is 14 months old , 21in long and 525g . He has a repti sun 10 , gets a 20 min bath daily . I measure his temps with a gun and his basking platform I try to keep around 105 .

His urates have been getting increasingly harder over time . Someone mentioned to cut down on the amount of calcium to 2 days a week So I tried that - it did not make any difference . I tried to cut out all the calcium for 2 weeks and that did not make a difference either .

Jim usually only poops in his bath so I know it is not drying out in the heat of his tank .
He should not be dehydrated since he gets a bath daily and even drinks when you drip water on his nose . It does not seem like he is straining to poop . I watch him in the bath and he pushes a few times and out comes the poop .

He does eat greens and some supers daily . I am just trying to figure out what else this could be .
The only thing different is that his uvb was changed to a 10.0 HO when I switched in Jan .
Could this be the problem ?

 

[CooperDragon]

How far is the HO UVB from the basking spot? That may be putting out too much and need to be backed off a bit, but I'm not sure. It could still be a hydration issue. Have you tried offering some really liquid intense feeders like hornworms?

 

[Missi]

The UVB is 8 1/2 inches from the basking spot , so with him sitting there he is no closer than the 6 inches .

Yes, I have given him hormworms , but the urates were still harder then normal .
He would have 1 a day for about 2 weeks and there was no difference .

I am going to buy another batch of horns and maybe some butters .

 

[Elmontare]

Have they been consistantly hard almost everytime since your first post about it back in february or more an on off type deal? Is the hard part white or more like an orangy color? Does he drink water on his own or only when you drip it on his nose (because a few drops isnt that much). Even if you cut back on how many times you dust the crickets its still possible theres just too much on them at one time...

 

[Missi]

They have been hard since Feb , sometimes the outside was softer with a harder inside . But now they are all hard . Sometimes there is a tint of orangish near the end of the urate before the poop begins , but not everytime .

When he gets a bath he will drink a bit if I do not drop some on his nose bot not all the time . He will just splash around or lay in the water looking around .

I am wondering if this is also because he only poops once a week . Even if I give him daily baths , massage his belly ( which he seems to like ) he still only poops once a week . Maybe he just holds it in too long .

He did poop yesterday and while the urate was still hard it was smaller than usual . And he never seems to have a hard time pooping .

He did have a fecal back around nov/dec which was normal .

I just want to be sure that there is nothing that I am doing wrong .

I try to lightly dust his live feeders to be sure that was not causing the hard urate .

 

[Elmontare]

If the cause is actually from holding it in you might want to try the olive oil trick say everyother day to start with after his next poop and compare. It may even promote a more "normal" or frequent poop schedule. My female has had times of holding it in for awhile and i never noticed a hardness just a size difference.

I havnt had much experience with health issues...the only time my female was passing hard material (which i at first thought was due to too much calcium) turned out to be infertile eggs. It was a while ago but i believe it lasted around a month...