Can chams get constipated?

[joneill]

Strange title I know but my 8 month old veiled has not pooped for 3 days. Is this normal? How often should they poop? I only got him on Saturday so have not seen him poop before. He is eating well, consuming around 6-8 crickets and 5-6 super/meal worms every day.

 

[carol5208]

yes they can. Sometimes they can also become impacted through foreign objects, meaning they may have injested something they cannot pass such as substrate (mulch bark), a rock, etc. Do you have anything in your cage that he could have eaten, like that?. three days is not that long but he should poop pretty soon. Make sure you check the cage real good to see if the poop is not sticking to a leaf or branch or something. Sometimes the poop has a way of hiding! Do not feed so many meal worms. They have been thought to cause pooping problems due to their exoskeletons being so hard with very little meat to digest. Try some softer worms like silkworms or hornworms to change up his diet a bit.

 

[buzz]

ya no meal worms and what you can do is put him a good warm shower for a little put his tree in there and bounce the warm water off the wall so he gets a good mist. I like closing the door and allowing it to get nice and steamy. This helps with him pooping.

 

[Miss Lily]

I used to find that sunshine would make my first female poop! It is not uncommon for adult chams to go days between poops - Amy pooped last wek after 18 days! I thought she was gonna explode, lol! Once they get to adulthod and their metabolism naturally drops, they eat less and poop less often.

Like ha salready been pointed out though, using too many mealworms can cause a blockage in their intestines as they find the chitin hard to digest.

 

[seanUTD]

I used to find that sunshine would make my first female poop! It is not uncommon for adult chams to go days between poops - Amy pooped last wek after 18 days! I thought she was gonna explode, lol! Once they get to adulthod and their metabolism naturally drops, they eat less and poop less often.

Like ha salready been pointed out though, using too many mealworms can cause a blockage in their intestines as they find the chitin hard to digest.

Lol this gave me a good laugh! I have to agree with no meal worms... I fed some to Stanley just to get rid of them so I could justify getting silkworms (needed the tub) and he just released their shells in his poop... I felt bad so I threw them out

 

[suzi]

Do super worms have a softer shell or is it the same? How many do you recommend?

 

[Carlton]

Do super worms have a softer shell or is it the same? How many do you recommend?

It is softer than a regular mealworm, but not as soft as something like a silkworm or hornworm. If you feed a variety and include superworms as part of the diet you should be fine. Just gutload the worms well with veggies, fruit, grains so what the cham does get is healthy. Like any feeder, chams can get hooked on one or the other for a while and refuse everything else. They can get tired of one too. Sometimes changing your gutload changes the taste and can get them interested again.

 

[Carlton]

Strange title I know but my 8 month old veiled has not pooped for 3 days. Is this normal? How often should they poop? I only got him on Saturday so have not seen him poop before. He is eating well, consuming around 6-8 crickets and 5-6 super/meal worms every day.

That's not very long! I've had chams go (er, or NOT go) a lot longer (drove me crazy!) and then pooped as if nothing was wrong. A change in bright light, a basking session outdoors or in a sunny window, a stroll around the house, a session in the shower, can all create a bit of "good" stress and clear things out.

 

[joneill]

Hi

It finally happened - Helmut pooped! After 4 days, now the question is it a healthy poop? Since we rescued him from a pet shop with poop sitting all around his cage, not a clean environement at all. What should I be looking for in terms of healthy?

 

[carol5208]

It should have a brown part and a white part. The white part is the pee or urate. The brown part should not be runny and not have any undigested bug parts in it.It can be kinda slimy looking but should be firm. There can be some orange between the urate and the poop itself. Over all you are looking for a white urate. A yelllow or orange urate suggest the chameleon is dehydrated a bit.

 

[joneill]

Thank you for that info. The pee is mostly white but there is some yellow, but I think he would be a bit dehydrated cause the pet shop had him in a cage with water bowl, gravel and 1 plastic tree no bigger than 5 inches. The poo is pretty much digested. Don't think the poor fellow had any misting done and I doubt he got any calcium. Hoping he is going to be alright.

 

[Miss Lily]

It should have a brown part and a white part. The white part is the pee or urate. The brown part should not be runny and not have any undigested bug parts in it.It can be kinda slimy looking but should be firm. There can be some orange between the urate and the poop itself. Over all you are looking for a white urate. A yelllow or orange urate suggest the chameleon is dehydrated a bit.

Just to add a bit more to that - the longer the cham leaves it between poopings, then the more orange the urate will be. The part that comes out first will have been inside the body longer and therefore more water will have been absorbed from it. The very last bit to leave the body is usually nice and white. For example, both mine can go about two weeks or more between poopings and I always find, especially with Tommy, that there is at least part of the urate that is yellow/orange, but, as I said, the very end of it is always white. When Amy used to poop every day there was no orange in her urates at all. Tommy has never pooped every day since I got him, but he's about 4 years old now, bless him, and even his bowels are set in their ways, lol!