New guy's poop (finally) - bloody urate??

Echoezra

Established Member
Okay, so I finally decided to disturb my new guy Zaphod again and did a little cage tidying and plant moving last night. I was getting worried about not having seen any poop from him yet (it's been a week since I got him) but I just assumed there was some poop but it was just hidden in the plants, and since his cage is up high, figured I just didn't have the bird's eye view necessary to spot it. SO last night, going through the plants, i didn't find any. Started to get worried...
Just now, giving him another mist before going out and I spot this in the catch bin at the bottom....
GIANT POOP by itself (mind you I'm used to little guys, so it might be normal poop size for a bigger chameleon)
Then another slightly smaller one next to it, with a very red urate attached.
Now, could the redness of the urate be partially related to it being "held up" for so long?
He's been eating fine, only one day a couple days ago where he didn't eat much. He's also been drinking, I've seen him drink several times, and now the past couple days some plant leaves have been even better positioned to hold the water longer. I've been misting numerous times per day, until leaves are completely covered in water throughout cage, misting him as well. So far just misting, no dripper, but I was just setting up a container today to drip for him while I was out, cause nobody would be here (I had my kids mist while I was at work on the weekend)
Anyway, is this something I should be really freaking out about (cause I am) or is it to be expected because of the long constipation, and only worry if the next one's red too??

I will double check my temps & fill out the help form a bit later, but for now just know everything is pretty much standard, 100 gallon flexarium, reptisun 5.0, 60 watt bulb, he's been eating medium crickets, , some butterworms and the occasional superworm (gutloaded same) thrown in there. He ate one silkworm early last week. Crickets & supers are gutloaded well (with a dry mix of oatmeal, bee pollen & hemp hearts, and then the last few days also a commercial gutload from Canadian Feeders & extra spirulina, and the fresh gutload is mostly collard greens and a frozen mix of chopped romaine, orange pepper and kiwi.) I don't have thermometers in there at the moment, I only have one I've been using to spot check both cages, (waiting on another one to be reordered) but the last time I checked it his basking spot was around 84-85 I believe.
Humidity I don't have an answer for unfortunately, because my gauge is faulty. I'm waiting on a new one of those too. The humidifer outside the cage has a sensor and so far I've been only running it at night because I have to rearrange some plugs, but when I turn it on at night the sensor says around 45, so that's when it's the lowest. In the morning it's been reading around 60-65. And that's outside of the cage, so I imagine inside the cage full of live plants & misting, it has to be higher than that.

(P.s. to recap, he's a 10 month mitsio I've had him for 9 days)

Let me know what you think I should do.
(p.s. I saved the poops for a fecal)
 
Last edited:
picture of poop

Here is the picture of the poops :eek:
 

Attachments

  • chameleons march 15 035.jpg
    chameleons march 15 035.jpg
    247.9 KB · Views: 1,038
Post has to be ten characters long. It was just to make it postable.

That is called dehydration. It is probably from the stress of moving and the long time since his last poop.
 
Means 10 character minimum for reply.

Ouch, did you pick that poo apart, look for indigestible solids?
looks like maybe her tore something slightly inside.
Water, water, more water and then, some more water! Hydration is crucially important.
Might also be worth taking that pearler to the vet and have a parasite check? :)

I dont think its dehydration as much as insufficient hydration causing straining and hence the blood
(if it is blood) your vet can tell you. If it was plain dehydration the brown poo would be much drier
and the urate itself yellow/orange. Looks moist to me.
 
I was figuring the stress was why he hadnt pooped I guess, and yes I figured he might be a little dehydrated but I wasn't expecting to see red. I thought I was watering a lot and honestly him I wasn't as worried about because I had seen him drinking a bit and little guy I hadnt. But little Zelig's urates were much whiter, only a tiny bit of yellow at tip.
So pssh, are we thinking dehydration or blood? I know it's like yellow bad, orange worse, is it then red really worse, or does red absolutely mean internal bleeding of some sort??
No, I didnt dig through it, just popped it in a baggie assuming vet soon.
And yes, it does look like it probably hurt. :( I'm hoping only temporarily.

Can I ask another possibly really dumb question that I never thought of before... Which is the order it comes out? Poop first or pee first? And like i mean, if a urate is white at the tip and yellow near the poop, does that mean, they were more dehydrated then it got better, or vice versa? Any kind of sense
I can make out of what I'm seeing would help me.
Thanks so much you guys. I really appreciate this. Wasn't expecting something this terrifying looking so soon...
 
That is orange not red. Red will be a bright red color if it is external or near the cloaca and black and pasty if its internal. The brown part would be black and pasty.

The urate comes out first so you would see blood on the brown if it were blood. That is just a bad case of needing some water.
 
Oops okay you guys are fast! Lol, thanks. Okay so probably not blood then, we're thinking?
As for moist, I agree, it wasn't hard & dry, but also there was a little puddle of water in that corner of the bin, so it probably looks a little extra moist because of that, but it hadn't been there very long, and even considering that, it was moister than the poops I've usually found from the littler guys.
 
Okay I will get really serious with the watering for sure, like positively drench the stubborn little sucker. ;) I was trying to provide frequent opportunity but allowing him to run away from the direct showering when he was sick of it (usually 30 seconds or so) then I'd finish soaking down all the plants and come back an hour or two later. I've got the plants better arranged now for a dripper of some sort, and I will order that mist king this week, I'll figure out something for drainage, I'm just having trouble finding something the perfect size.
Do we think a vet appointment is in order as well? Do you suspect it's anything parasite-related, or were you just thinking "while you've gt some poo in a bag"? I don't mind taking him like cost wise, it's not that, it's just he's still really freaked out about my hands and the idea I might handle him. Im frankly a little bit afraid at the thought of having to, i gently brushed his foot yesterday with my hand while placing a worm on his vine, and he nearly did a backflip trying to escape from the horror. Lol. And if he's already stressed
enough to not poo, what's a vet trip gonna do for his stress levels? If there's a definitely suspected problem, of course, but if it's just precautionary I'd prefer to wait until he's settled down a little more.
 
I would think if it were dehydrated enough that its urate was red (very dark orange) that
most of the urate would be that color, the overall poo would be much drier and if dehydration was so bad, the lizard ought to show signs, sinking if the eyes, some wrinkling of the skin perhaps.
You may well be right Ryan, but I would still be having the poo examined all the same. :)

Do we think a vet appointment is in order as well? Do you suspect it's anything parasite-related, or were you just thinking "while you've gt some poo in a bag"?
ROFL, first laugh of the day! :D

Yes Im thinking either something indigestible did some minor damage, or parasite related, but thats just me.
P.s. you could take your bag of poo without the lizard, vet may give you a commercial wormer/dosage or ask you to return otherwise.
 
Last edited:
Nah, the oranger part has probably been held in his system for much longer and therefore more water is absorbed from it. It's like a timeline :)
 
What did you feed it recently (that would have been in his system long enough to pass with that urate) ?
Well, like I said, this is the only poop so far that I've seen, so this would be an accumulation of what he ate all week I guess. Majority crickets, maybe one or two superworms a day (except for Sunday & today) and 2 or 3 butterworms most days. He had 3 today, and maybe 5 crickets?
 
I would think if it were dehydrated enough that its urate was red (very dark orange) that
most of the urate would be that color, the overall poo would be much drier and if dehydration was so bad, the lizard ought to show signs, sinking if the eyes, some wrinkling of the skin perhaps.
You may well be right Ryan, but I would still be having the poo examined all the same. :)

ROFL, first laugh of the day! :D

Yes Im thinking either something indigestible did some minor damage, or parasite related, but thats just me.
P.s. you could take your bag of poo without the lizard, vet may give you a commercial wormer/dosage or ask you to return otherwise.

Seems like his eyes & skin are still okay as far as I can tell. I will find a picture I took a couple days ago. They were a little bit blurry but it might I've you some idea. I'll also post a picture of him when I opened the box last Sunday, there was a poop in there you guys can compare?
I will call around to the vets tomorrow, see who can get me in with my bag-o-goodies.
 
Nah, the oranger part has probably been held in his system for much longer and therefore more water is absorbed from it. It's like a timeline :)
Well thats what i was hoping, but again with the not dried-upedness.
Which thing are you "nah"-ing to? That you think it might be blood? Parasites?
 
To jo. :) I just meant that the whole thing doesn't really have to be orange to show deyhydration. I am almost 100% positive that it is just dehyration from stress and from the urate being inside the body so long.
 
Here are a couple more pictures for comparison. One is of Zaphod a couple of days ago, the other is the first night I got him, right when I opened the box, it shows his last poop.
 

Attachments

  • chameleons march 15 029.jpg
    chameleons march 15 029.jpg
    250.5 KB · Views: 364
  • Zaphod first night home.jpg
    Zaphod first night home.jpg
    251.7 KB · Views: 369
To jo. :) I just meant that the whole thing doesn't really have to be orange to show deyhydration. I am almost 100% positive that it is just dehyration from stress and from the urate being inside the body so long.

Okay, well that's what I was hoping in the first place, and I sure hope you're/we're right. If one of the vet's will let me bring in the poop without an initial exam of the chameleon tomorrow I will do that just in case. I hope they don't make me bring him too, cause I really don't want to stress him out more if he's already too stressed to poo, you know? Maybe I'm just paranoid since my last cham dropped dead the day after his vet exam. :(
 
Back
Top Bottom