Squirt's Labwork - Liver Infection

[Kaizen]

I won't be using the bee pollen ever again. That is the only thing that changed in his diet ?

While keepers have kept chams for decades without bee pollen, it is the part of prudence not to put all of one’s bad eggs in one basket...wow! I really need to stop waxing poetic! Seriously though, bee pollen, or an over abundance of it, might be to blame, but it also might not bee (sic!). What I mean is, if you just chalk the problem up to bee pollen, you might miss something else that was equally, or even more problematic. Keep an open, but critical, mind. At least that’s what I would do.

 

[Kaizen]

Some one should tag big P on this thread. We’d have a real Halloween horror special right here on the forums.

 

[jamest0o0]

good advice here. I think the levels of bee pollen we've all been using is probably far more than they'd find in the wild and would make sense to cause strain on organs. That said, I too got carried away with using it and luckily have had no problems yet. I will probably cut down my use of it by a lot.

 

[Kaizen]

There goes my reputation as a diplomat. ?

 

[jamest0o0]

Some one should tag big P on this thread. We’d have a real Halloween horror special right here on the forums.

Edited! Just kidding

Happy halloween!
If I wind up dead, it was probably the mods

 

[Kaizen]

OMG, I was only joking. Good gosh, my pm with the powers that be will now have no credibility. Dammit James! BTW, Sean Connery died?

 

[Kaizen]

Thank goodness you edited that! I’d lose all my “nice Canadian” credibility if I started that bloody war. ?

 

[Kris Chams]

While keepers have kept chams for decades without bee pollen, it is the part of prudence not to put all of one’s bad eggs in one basket...wow! I really need to stop waxing poetic! Seriously though, bee pollen, or an over abundance of it, might be to blame, but it also might not bee (sic!). What I mean is, if you just chalk the problem up to bee pollen, you might miss something else that was equally, or even more problematic. Keep an open, but critical, mind. At least that’s what I would do.

I totally agree with you.

 

[PetNcs]

I won't be using the bee pollen ever again. That is the only thing that changed in his diet ?

Polaln must be safe
There is no evidence if its harm
Otherwise you go to all
Madagascar and africa and ask chameleons not to eat bees as main diet and not swallow
Pollen for millions of years.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Anthrax is also natural and has been present in the wild for millions of years. People have died from overingestion of water.

Coating an entire batch of bugs in bee pollen regularly is probably not matching the amount of pollen consumed on wild insects is my point. Anything can become toxic if there is too much of it. As has been stated elsewhere, the plants there are totally different than the plants here. Who is to say the composition of the pollen is exactly the same? We know the composition of pollen can be altered depending on the floral sources just here in the US.

 

[PetNcs]

Anthrax is also natural and has been present in the wild for millions of years. People have died from overingestion of water.

Coating an entire batch of bugs in bee pollen regularly is probably not matching the amount of pollen consumed on wild insects is my point. Anything can become toxic if there is too much of it. As has been stated elsewhere, the plants there are totally different than the plants here. Who is to say the composition of the pollen is exactly the same? We know the composition of pollen can be altered depending on the floral sources just here in the US.

as usual, you arw destructive and biassed
Yoj know nothing about the wild composition of rhe food of chameleons or yohnignore it nust again to attack an area that I have brought widelh into rhe hobby and have very positive results with

your Anthrax remark is jusg an unfair provocation

pollen os not a disease
It is a natural gutload of polinators (gutload by my definiton not the wrong of yours)
It is a complex substande containing about half sugars and the rest aminoacids, vitamins, trace elements etc etc.

i feed my chameleons with henuine pollen coming from same trees, as those, rhey inhabitnin thwir homecountry, so, Indo not nees to care fir composition, bexaise it is the same rhey get fkr millions if years

happy haloween night full of nightmare yoj bring to the hobby

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I figured you’d spew your normal crap. Which will be deleted if you continue because you continue to personally attack and insult instead of just sticking to data or having a meaningful discussion.

Let’s just go off some averages here. I don’t have specs on bees in Madagascar or Africa so will have to do with American honeybee averages. Bees weigh about 0.1g and can carry 20-50% of their weight in pollen so that’s 0.02-0.05g of pollen. Bees can make up to 80% of the diet of Furcifer pardalis according to some sources so let’s use that number. If we use the average weight of Acheta domesticus (crickets) as 0.4g and feed maybe 8 crickets per meal that’s a total volume of 3.2g. If 80% of those were bees with pollen the maximum amount of pollen ingestion would be 0.128g of pollen per meal. But only 15-30% of a colony’s foragers carry pollen so there may be many bees ingested that have no pollen on them at all. So 0.038g of pollen per meal maximum using these average numbers. Is anyone going to tell me that they’re using a comparable amount?

Goody for you that you use pollen from their home range. We do not because we can’t. There may be differences in the nutritional composition as you emphatically argued when it came to the nutritional composition of vegetation used in gutloading.

 

[PetNcs]

I figured you’d spew your normal crap. Which will be deleted if you continue because you continue to personally attack and insult instead of just sticking to data or having a meaningful discussion.

Let’s just go off some averages here. I don’t have specs on bees in Madagascar or Africa so will have to do with American honeybee averages. Bees weigh about 0.1g and can carry 20-50% of their weight in pollen so that’s 0.02-0.05g of pollen. Bees can make up to 80% of the diet of Furcifer pardalis according to some sources so let’s use that number. If we use the average weight of Acheta domesticus (crickets) as 0.4g and feed maybe 8 crickets per meal that’s a total volume of 3.2g. If 80% of those were bees with pollen the maximum amount of pollen ingestion would be 0.128g of pollen per meal. Only 15-30% of a colony’s foragers carry pollen so there may be many bees ingested that have no pollen on them at all. So 0.038g of pollen per meal using these average numbers. Is anyone going to tell me that they’re using a comparable amount?

why are you constructing this dake and unnatural construxt assuming ppl Are Overfeeding?

itnis easy to understand that if eg 20 bees are eaten which I hav, they will wear on aberage 40 granules of
Pollen

and itnis a lot

i in person,
Never give even that mich to the feeders

but yiu thing ool
Are overfeedinv with oollen? On what basis?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

why are you constructing this dake and unnatural construxt assuming ppl Are Overfeeding?

itnis easy to understand that if eg 20 bees are eaten which I hav, they will wear on aberage 40 granules of
Pollen

and itnis a lot

i in person,
Never give even that mich to the feeders

but yiu thing ool
Are overfeedinv with oollen? On what basis?

Because I’ve seen people dump in bee pollen for gutloading and literally coat crickets in it so they are yellow under the recommendation that it is natural and safe. So my concern is that it is being overused. How much does 40 granules weigh?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

This thread is for someone asking about the health status of their chameleon. Further replies need to be focused on that. If we would like to examine the merits of bee pollen further it will need to be done elsewhere.

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

Here are Squirt's Xrays. I don't know how to look at those, but I'm worried about his tail. I think the rest of his parts look good.

I don’t see anything obvious on his x-rays as concerning. What worries you about his tail?

 

[PetNcs]

Because I’ve seen people dump in bee pollen for gutloading and literally coat crickets in it so they are yellow under the recommendation that it is natural and safe. So my concern is that it is being overused. How much does 40 granules weigh?

If people
Are doing this, explain them
What is proper and dk not say it is wrong

As the nutritive value of a bee is approximately same per g as the cricket, we can easily assume that the volume of intestines is approximately the same if rhe volume of the feeders is same
So
No reason for panicking if gitloading

if you would
Ever
Make experiments with pollen, yij would know that it does not hold well on the crickets so that your report report on yellow coated feeders seems to
Me quite improbable, as it is very hard tk coat them, nearly impossible (I know a teick how to do but will not reveal on oirpose here), this is why gutloading and immediate consumption is the way to do. Crickets and roaches are not really fans if it alsways, some
Feeders are quite relictant to swalllow it so I am not positive about your reported dimbed in crickets either.

and again, if yoj are so concerned about it, why not to explain to all the chameleons in the wild that willingky Feed on that on a daily basis
Even if it would in an extreme and absurd case harmful (but then olease talk to all the gutloading mixture companies and to Arcadia, which have pollen in their registerd, approved and with oatents equipped mixtures,), as an integral
Part of their doet, they would evolve a way how tomdeal with it and infact they would be aet up
Already by evolution tomeat it same
As other animals forced by circimstances and evolution to eat toxic stuff.
All thisnis absurd if yih look at the composition as it is well
Onown. i am not aware of any poison reported from
Bee pollen on contrary, all what is listed are neneficial nutrients. Fat silu le vitamins are there in trace volumes somoberdose is excluded

i guess yij are simoly painting a devil
On the wall (a czech saying) just to soeak
Against common
And evidentky beneficial practice

period

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

I do not people should not use it at all as you suggest. My concern is the need for more moderation in its use until it is better understood.

 

[Kris Chams]

I don’t see anything obvious on his x-rays as concerning. What worries you about his tail?

He didn't curl his tail up. Is that a sign of MBD? I'm becoming so paranoid about his well being ?

 

[jannb]

He didn't curl his tail up. Is that a sign of MBD? I'm becoming so paranoid about his well being ?

He never curls up his tail?