orange urate and runny urate

haleymht

Member
I’m almost always in my room with my chameleon, so I’ve always seen him drink. This past week, I haven’t seen him drink any water. He was refusing any bug other than hornworms for a few days so I gave him 1 hornworm for like 3 or 4 days until he started eating crickets and roaches again. That’s when I noticed he stopped drinking water and thought he was getting too much hydration from the hornworms because his urates were runny, so i went down to a small hornworm every other day, and noticed yellowy orange urates. I heavily misted his cage extra and sprayed extra water on the plants he likes to eat. He got a lot of water from that and had runny urates again yesterday. This morning, they’re yellowy orange again. I feed him more hornworms than average because he really likes them and I want to make sure he’s getting enough hydration, but it’s still not enough to fully hydrate him. I don’t understand why he’s going back and forth between over hydrated and dehydrated. I have a dripper going all day but he usually drinks when I mist, but he hasn’t been lately. Any tips?
 
I’m almost always in my room with my chameleon, so I’ve always seen him drink. This past week, I haven’t seen him drink any water. He was refusing any bug other than hornworms for a few days so I gave him 1 hornworm for like 3 or 4 days until he started eating crickets and roaches again. That’s when I noticed he stopped drinking water and thought he was getting too much hydration from the hornworms because his urates were runny, so i went down to a small hornworm every other day, and noticed yellowy orange urates. I heavily misted his cage extra and sprayed extra water on the plants he likes to eat. He got a lot of water from that and had runny urates again yesterday. This morning, they’re yellowy orange again. I feed him more hornworms than average because he really likes them and I want to make sure he’s getting enough hydration, but it’s still not enough to fully hydrate him. I don’t understand why he’s going back and forth between over hydrated and dehydrated. I have a dripper going all day but he usually drinks when I mist, but he hasn’t been lately. Any tips?
So if you feed hornworms frequently like this then it produces more runny stool and urate.

Did you take a picture so we can tell you if it is a normal urate or showing dehydration signs?
 
So if you feed hornworms frequently like this then it produces more runny stool and urate.

Did you take a picture so we can tell you if it is a normal urate or showing dehydration signs?
Yeah here are the pictures of both of them
 

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Both look very normal... How old is he now and what is the feeding schedule and amounts you have him on?
he’s 5 months old and I feed him 5-10 crickets in the morning depending on how many he wants, a small horn worm every other day, and i offer him a dubia about every other day but he only eats like 2 a week. since he loves hornworms so much, I was thinking of ordering silk worms for more variety but they were sold out on all the websites I checked. I’ll check the sponsors again right now and see if there are any available, i was also looking for green banana roaches and couldn’t find any available. i had super worms for a while like a month or 2 ago and he ate about one a week.

so his urates look normal? they’re usually more white, that’s why I was getting nervous about dehydration. thank you for reassuring me though!
 
he’s 5 months old and I feed him 5-10 crickets in the morning depending on how many he wants, a small horn worm every other day, and i offer him a dubia about every other day but he only eats like 2 a week. since he loves hornworms so much, I was thinking of ordering silk worms for more variety but they were sold out on all the websites I checked. I’ll check the sponsors again right now and see if there are any available, i was also looking for green banana roaches and couldn’t find any available. i had super worms for a while like a month or 2 ago and he ate about one a week.

so his urates look normal? they’re usually more white, that’s why I was getting nervous about dehydration. thank you for reassuring me though!
Yeah the urates look normal. Not really runny either. up to 50% yellow/orange is normal.

So you want to cut him back to an every other day feeding now of 5 feeders. Then at 9 months you will reduce further to 3 feeders every other day.

Silk worms are great but can be hard to get. I believe @jamest0o0 has green banana roaches.
 
Yeah the urates look normal. Not really runny either. up to 50% yellow/orange is normal.

So you want to cut him back to an every other day feeding now of 5 feeders. Then at 9 months you will reduce further to 3 feeders every other day.

Silk worms are great but can be hard to get. I believe @jamest0o0 has green banana roaches.
thank you! also would i be able to feed 2-3 everyday instead of 5 every other day? why do people feed them every other day? i feel bad when i cut back on his food because he walks all over his cage looking for bugs when i don’t give him as much as he wants
 
thank you! also would i be able to feed 2-3 everyday instead of 5 every other day? why do people feed them every other day? i feel bad when i cut back on his food because he walks all over his cage looking for bugs when i don’t give him as much as he wants
So we cut back food because they stop using all the food for growth... And it starts to convert to fat. This is particularly bad for chams as when they get fat it forms in their abdomen and wraps around their organs. It compromises organ function. So you end up with a cham that lives a much shorter life or a very unhealthy life when they are obese.

They will instinctively eat as much as they see because wild chams dont have humans that bring them meals so they never know when they will get the chance to eat. Very different from what they experience in captivity. Also they are not as active in captivity as they are in the wild.
 
So we cut back food because they stop using all the food for growth... And it starts to convert to fat. This is particularly bad for chams as when they get fat it forms in their abdomen and wraps around their organs. It compromises organ function. So you end up with a cham that lives a much shorter life or a very unhealthy life when they are obese.

They will instinctively eat as much as they see because wild chams dont have humans that bring them meals so they never know when they will get the chance to eat. Very different from what they experience in captivity. Also they are not as active in captivity as they are in the wild.
that makes sense, thank you!
 
I just posted a question about the feeding schedule too. Wish I’d read this first lol. But it’s nice to see someone else wondering about the every other day fasting regiment.
 
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