OK, I'm stress free now...almost.

Hi everyone,

this is day 3 that I got baby Splat.
he is 9 1/2 weeks old...ambilobi from Krammer Kreations.

he has clearly drank twice on the first day. once on the second day.
(that I noticed)
today, I don't think he drank, at least that I noticed.

on day 1 he did not eat any fruitflys.
on day 2 he did not eat any fruitflys.

I did find a BIG poop on day 2 (all black, and looking good), but no urate....sorry if I spelled that wrong.

last night my house flys started to hatch.
so thinking that the fruitflys might be too small for him to care about them, I desided to add just two house flys...no, I did not gut load them yet as they were still hatching and I just wanted to try a bigger food right away for him to start eating.
today, day 3, he was just not that active like the past 2 days.
I was totaly stressed out about this.

anyway, 1 of the 2 house flys drowned in a puddle right away. leaving just 1 fly left.
so I desided that I'll put about 4 or 5 more so I can clearly tell if he eats a few flys or not.

I did notice an other poop...this time slightly smaller, and 25% gray. the rest black.
I cleaned it up, still no urate.

added the 5 houseflys, and walked away.
of course about 10 mins later I notice he desided to try to get some sleep...3 hours before lights out.
I was thinking of misting the cage anyway, so I did, spraying him as well to see if he would start walking around or get pissed off at me like yesterday morning.

he desided to try to move away from my misting, climbing the top of the cage like he does a lot.
I closed the door and walked away to the other side of the room just as he was walking stright towards a fly.
trying not to even look at him so maybe he would eat it.
I had to peek at him, and saw his mouth open and close a few times like he was chewing.
so I walked over to the cage and only could find 1 left, but just thought the other flys were hiding.
he walked away from me right to the other fly.
again I walked away as I didn't want to stress him while he could be going after the next one.

I came back 20 mins later to finaly mist and clean up that poop.
NO FLYS IN THE CAGE.
I'm telling you I looked everywere, even shook the tree a liitle bit.
nothing.

I can't belive he ate 5 or 6 flys. but they are nowhere to be found.
I'm almost stress free now that I know he's eating.

my big question is, is it normal for me not to find any urate?
he's not dehydrated that I can tell.

didn't want to take ant photos of him today, as I wanted it to be as stress free as posable for him.
yet here is a pic I took of him last night before he went to sleep.



I have crickets, mini mealworms, and phoenix worms comming over night on tuesday from mulberry farms in case he gets sick of the house flys.
(and the flys will be gut loaded next feeding, cross my heart.)

but no urate? is this normal?

Harry

i'm so awfully new at this myself. i'm really thinking it wouldn't be normal.... or good to not have any urate at all. Glad he's eating for you though. he will get some moisture from that, but not enough. my little guys fluid intake increased a lot when i installed a dripper.

I have no clue about your urate question but he's looking good for you only having him a few days. Hopefully someone can clear up the urate question.. sure you aren't missing it? It's white and looks like white poop, kind of.

I wouldn't stress about not seeing him eat or drink in front of you. Mine was very shy at first and didnt eat in front of me for a week and didn't drink in front of me until a month in. They are shy by nature I suppose, so it makes sense he waited for you to leave before eating.

Mine did alot of rubbing and walking on the ceiling the first week. The less visual attention I gave him, the happier he was. He is fine with me watching him now, but he was very nervous about it before.

I got him at 4 months, and he drops at least 1 or 2 dueces a day. You might of missed the urate, it can be pretty small and seperates from the poop and sticks to leaves and stuff easily.

Syn said:

I have no clue about your urate question but he's looking good for you only having him a few days. Hopefully someone can clear up the urate question.. sure you aren't missing it? It's white and looks like white poop, kind of.

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I looked and looked, and no white poop...or anything even looking like discolored urate.
it should be about the same size as his poop if I'm not mistaken.

I'm going to relook in the soil of his umbrela tree, but I just can't find any for days.

Harry

Sometimes the urate hits something and gets caught on a leaf. It would be dried up by now. Look carefully tomorrow.

Hope this helps.

warpdrive said:

soil of his umbrela tree

Click to expand...

Wouldn't this be covered up? Should be, don't want your little guy ingesting any.

Syn said:

Wouldn't this be covered up? Should be, don't want your little guy ingesting any.

Click to expand...

I fully agree. my nephiew still hasn't brought over the rocks he promised yet.


ya know, I've been wiping down the bottom of the cage at least twice a day.
if it's smaller then his poop by alot, I might have seen it, but thought it was just something that fell from a wet paper towel or something.
it was alot smaller then his poop, thinner, like a dryed out string.
not puffy like his poop.

I'll be far more careful to look tomorrow.

Harry

Mine is like, a quarter of the size of the poop. Something like that.

Even at 5 months, it is tough to find sometimes, especially if it hang on a leaf or falls into a branch. I check mine religiously because he refused to drink in front of me for so long.

I've never had a baby but I guess it's possible like chambaby said that it's a quarter of the size of the poo.

Glad to know you knew about the substrate rule. If anything the local dollar store should have some.

Nice clear picture of they guy, good looking Cham.

Someone should start a poop pics forum I think. Such pics could include 'normal', yellow/orange urates 'dehydrated' etc 'Mucus' and so on, so people can compare.

Maybe a link and/or explaination for each?

Cute little Cham Incedently! good luck with him

P.s Sometimes I cant find urates either, Occasionally its expelled onto leaves and you dont find it till later, some is softer than usual and gets washed into your dripper collecter through the mesh.
Just keep an eye on it, as long as you see it drinking daily and its toileting at all, its probably ok.

Dont stress Harry, you are doing a fine job, They will eat if the food if it's accessable and drink if your misting. They do things on thier time and are quite shy about doing it infront of you. The urate your looking for will be hard to spot, since its so small and basically all water. When it dries is 1/10 the size of what it was when it came out. So basically your looking for something super tiny and it could get overlooked. I find urate on leaves and poo on the bottom all the time. He looks fantastic and does not look dehydrated from the picture, infact he looks pretty robust and his his eyes are very alert. You can relax. The phoenix worms you got coming are going to make life easy, when it comes to feeding they stay put...he'll love them and they are easy to feed off...they dont jump or fly thank god! Go lite on the meal worms as they are harder to digest and are kinda light on nutrition. I personally poke holes in the phoenix's to be sure the get digested properly. Keep the pictures coming, your going through the worst of it (when there that small) in a month you wont even recognize him, they grow so fast. They are easier to feed when they are bigger and can hunt comfortably in the whole cage. Good luck Harry, JOOOOO CAN DOOOOOOO ETTTTTTTTT!!!


-Jay

chambaby and syn,

yeah, it was far less then half the size of his poop...maybe even 1/4th the size. it's why I disregarded what I was looking at.
I'll take a pic the next time I see anything like that.
but what I saw was a white string looking thing, maybe even dryed up a little.
it was located not far from his poop, so that might be it.

if that was it, I might have even wiped up more and not even noticed as the bottom of my cage gets real wet.
again, I'll look a lot harder next time I wipe up all the water from misting.

most of the urate I've seen is almost as large as the poop, but they were from adults not babys.

anyway, thanks a lot. I'm going to take a chill pill and stop freaking out.
after all, I've seen him drink a few times, and that's more then most can say at this stage of my story.
he's eating too, so I should have nothing to worrie about.

(and syn, yes, gata go out a get a few things tomorrow so I'm gona take your advice and get something from the dollar store too.)

Harry

Make sure he can't ingest the rocks. Clean them well.

thank you Jay.

I needed to hear from you. was even going to PM you about this.
a check just cleared, so I'm going out to get a humidifier tomorrow.
gata get the rocks I want for the plant too.

the big guy up above gave me "off and on" rainny days since I got Splat.
so humidity was quite good even in my house with all the heat I get that drys the air not just heats the house.
shoot, after I misted the cage today it would shoot upto 80%. fully dry was 48% - 55%
but can get as low as 35% at night with my windows closed.
edit: just checked again, and with my window open and a dry cage, lights out, he's sleeping, the humidity is 52%. temp at bottom of cage is 76F.

let's see, timers for the lights too...I hope I have enough to eat.

Harry

Syn said:

Make sure he can't ingest the rocks. Clean them well.

Click to expand...

oh yes, was thinking of the big polished glass things that ladys use to make a vase pretty inside or something silly like that.

Harry

go to menards and get a big bag of river rock, sunstone, or marble (landscaping, should be near wood chips)

A lot cheaper than spending $7 on a tiny bag of polished glass or stones.

If you get the river rock, you will need to wash the mud off

Harry you have an exellent little guy. You are doing a great job and it shows. Now just try to relax and enjoy little splat. oth of you will be ok.