Look at Lolita's Poop

[paleopossum]

So Lolita is about six months old and weighs 63g and eats almost every day and I run the dripper every other day mostly. She hasn't gone to the bathroom in like a week and a half and I was getting so worried because her last one took long as well. I tried baths and all that, but yesterday I got her a big hornworm and took her outside today for a bit over half an hour. She started to gap a bit so I'd put a bit of water in her mouth with a bottle cap and she finally pooped. The crickets she eats eat mainly carrots so I'm not sure combined with the fact it was in her for a while if that's why it's so orange. She drinks a good amount and is mister every day multiple times.

 

[Miss Lily]

The urates are orange because they have been inside her so long and the water from it has been absorbed leaving the orange urate crystals. The longer the urate stays in the body, the darker the colour. Orange urates also suggests that the chameleon is somewhat dehydrated. My big old male Veiled used to poop every 10 days or so and his urates were often fairly orange despite him drinking every day! Also, leafy greens, such as collard greens are better for gutloading crckets. Mine love dandelion leaves too, and wild rocket salad leaves.

 

[jajeanpierre]

So Lolita is about six months old and weighs 63g and eats almost every day and I run the dripper every other day mostly. She hasn't gone to the bathroom in like a week and a half and I was getting so worried because her last one took long as well. I tried baths and all that, but yesterday I got her a big hornworm and took her outside today for a bit over half an hour. She started to gap a bit so I'd put a bit of water in her mouth with a bottle cap and she finally pooped. The crickets she eats eat mainly carrots so I'm not sure combined with the fact it was in her for a while if that's why it's so orange. She drinks a good amount and is mister every day multiple times.

Her stool looks very dry which suggests to me she is dehydrated.

What are you doing to give her water? Humidity?

 

[paleopossum]

Her stool looks very dry which suggests to me she is dehydrated.

What are you doing to give her water? Humidity?

She gets misted multiple times a day and every other day she gets her dripper filled and ran till it is emptied, it's the little dripper by zoomed. The humidity stays between 60-75%. It didn't seem that dry to me with all the liquid and gunk that came out on it.

 

[kinyonga]

Does she sit under the basking light a lot?

 

[paleopossum]

Does she sit under the basking light a lot?

Not to much she moves all around and mainly sits under it when it first comes on. After that she wonders around and today she was staying down lower on a branch flushed with the side covered by plants.

 

[jajeanpierre]

@paleopossum It looks like dried hard feces. Stool should be smooth and egg shaped. Ignore the mucus covering the stool. The stool looks quite dessicated. Her urates are orange. She might be dehydrated. Do you have some decent pictures of her? Her face and eyes and her back, tail and hip area?

Most pet chameleons are chronically dehydrated. You only give her water every other day. Her urates look the way I would expect a severely dehydrated chameleon's to look. Her stool looks like she is dehydrated. Sixty to seventy percent humidity is not very high.

 

[paleopossum]

@paleopossum It looks like dried hard feces. Stool should be smooth and egg shaped. Ignore the mucus covering the stool. The stool looks quite dessicated. Her urates are orange. She might be dehydrated. Do you have some decent pictures of her? Her face and eyes and her back, tail and hip area?

Most pet chameleons are chronically dehydrated. You only give her water every other day. Her urates look the way I would expect a severely dehydrated chameleon's to look. Her stool looks like she is dehydrated. Sixty to seventy percent humidity is not very high.[/QU
/QUOTE]

 

[paleopossum]

@paleopossum It looks like dried hard feces. Stool should be smooth and egg shaped. Ignore the mucus covering the stool. The stool looks quite dessicated. Her urates are orange. She might be dehydrated. Do you have some decent pictures of her? Her face and eyes and her back, tail and hip area?

Most pet chameleons are chronically dehydrated. You only give her water every other day. Her urates look the way I would expect a severely dehydrated chameleon's to look. Her stool looks like she is dehydrated. Sixty to seventy percent humidity is not very high.

The picture of her being super dark was just today when I first took her out.[

 

[jajeanpierre]

Try really increasing the humidity and the amount of mistings per day both in number and duration plus give her a dripper at least once a day.

I use automatic misting and it is just so much better for them. Most chameleons are chronically dehydrated and it is often simply because they don't live in a humid enough environment. 60% to 70% is not a rain forest.

 

[jamest0o0]

Panthers aren't usually found in rainforests

 

[Angelwolf]

When you do mist her, how long of a period of time are you doing it for? You want to be doing it for at least 2-3 minutes at every misting and probably 2-3 times a day. Sometimes a 4-5 minute misting session is good, too.

 

[jamest0o0]

That said that does look dehydrated, or constipated for some other reason. I think saying %70 isn't high is confusing, all of the care sheets suggest 50-70 max. Looking at where they're found, we are actually keeping them in better care than they'd get in the wild.

 

[Angelwolf]

I would use a better gutload, also. Dark leafy greens is best. This will increase the fiber content of the cricket and her body will use it to move her bowels. Also, she needs to be basking to digest her food properly. So is she's not doing that (except at lights on to warm up her body) then she's not digesting right and therefore not pooping right, either. I would add 1 more source of heat, lower in her cage. It doesn't need to be as hot as her main basking area, but if she's spending too much time at the bottom of her cage, she's too cold, which will eventually end in kidney failure and death.

 

[paleopossum]

When you do mist her, how long of a period of time are you doing it for? You want to be doing it for at least 2-3 minutes at every misting and probably 2-3 times a day. Sometimes a 4-5 minute misting session is good, too.

She usually gets misted for about two minutes 2-3 times a day. How would you make another heat source lower in the tank? A heat pad?

 

[jamest0o0]

You should be misting 5-10 minutes in the AM when lights turn on. This IMO is the most important misting. It's when they're used to licking dew off the leaves in the wild and when they're most likely to drink. I do 10-20 min mistings at 8am when lights go on and then 2-4 light 1-3 min mistings spread out through the day. Stopping a couple hours before lights off.

 

[jajeanpierre]

Panthers aren't usually found in rainforests

http://www.madcham.de/en/furcifer-pardalis/

Just because they are often found in secondary forests doesn't mean they aren't a rain forest dweller, Madagascar is not the same as it was 100 years ago and very soon it will be a desert island. The desert island that Madagascar is soon to become is not where panthers evolved. Veiled didn't evolve in the arid escarpment in south western Arabian Peninsula, but on an Arabian Peninsula that was lush and had large lakes in the middle of what is now the Empty Quarter, the largest sand desert in the world.

Low humidity is a main cause of dehydration in chamleons. By the way, deserts can be quite humid, especially desert islands.

 

[Angelwolf]

Use a lower wattage heat lamp towards the middle of the cage. You can point it indirectly toward the cage.

 

[jamest0o0]

@jajeanpierre you're right that's a good point, I didn't mean that to come off like you shouldn't get them more water, but that it could be confusing with their caresheets saying 50-70 max is the goal. Madagascar does have some dense rainforests still, why are panthers not found there? I was thinking maybe because of obstacles

 

[jamest0o0]

I was reading

http://eol.org/pages/1056895/details

And listened to cham breeder podcast with the scientist who studies them in the wild.