Chameleon Poop 101

sanitysake said:
What a helpful thread! My panther chameleon, skittles, pooped today (Thursday), the last time I think he did was on Sunday.

I uploaded a pic for you guys to check out. Ive been somewhat concerned about how well he is being hydrated, I mist heavily twice a day and humidity is usually between 40%-70%. He eats dubia roaches gutloaded with cricket food, carrots, oranges, apples, some collard greens.

But i wanted to be more aware/sure if he's doing okay, because I rarely see him drinking water/dew. I still feel like he could be drinking more. Based on what I read in the first post, it's normal for the urate to have some orange if its been a few days?

The sperm plugs fell out last, theyre on top of the urate. You can kind of make it out.
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Yeah no worries about seeing a bit or orange up front of the urates from a cham that poo's every 3, 4, or 5 days. You are not alone w/ not seeing him drink. I think they do it on purpose. You turn your head, and they'll drink. You look back and they just smile like nothing is going on. :rolleyes:

Btw, you are a tropper. Wow, you had his poo in your hand. :p
 
Lazy Boy said:
Ever poop I pick up out of Lazy boys cage I look at in the light and then smash with the paper towel and smear to see how he's digesting everything. Anyone ever seen a air bubble in a fresh urates?
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Good to know I'm not the only "poo smasher" out there. Glad you said it first. :p Mine both poo with mucus and air a bit. Guess they're just a little bit gassy...
 
melble68 said:
Good to know I'm not the only "poo smasher" out there. Glad you said it first. :p Mine both poo with mucus and air a bit. Guess they're just a little bit gassy...
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Your not alone ;) now this might set me aside but I sniff it almost everytime too :eek:
 
I don't have to sniff, I can tell when there is poo in the enclosures. It just flat out stinks. :eek: My girl is totally consistent on where, and I can see it. My male on the other hand is pretty good at getting it on the back side of a leaf so it takes a bit to find it.
 
watery/runny urate

Someone else asked about watery urates but I didn't see an answer so I wanted to bring it up again. My 11 month old male veiled had a very watery urate this morning. It left more of a big white splat on the floor of his enclosure rather then the nicely formed-hanging from the plant just under the poop that he normally has. He has been getting 1 hornworm a day for a week and a half. Along with his crickets, calic worms, super worms. I also offer him dubia but he wont eat them. He gets an occasional wax worm, some meal worms every once in a while. I have read that the hornworms can cause it to be runny but would 1a day be enough to make it that bad?
 
IMO, I think its worms in general that are potentially giving him the "runs". From your description, it sounds like a lot of his feeders are worms. I would try to reduce the amount of worm based feeders, and stick more so to crickets. He's also to the age that I believe its ok to go to every other day feedings. My year old male is offered food every other day at this point. He snubs his nose to me if I feed him everyday. He also poops every 4 or 5th day at this point.
 
villanueva11 said:
Someone else asked about watery urates but I didn't see an answer so I wanted to bring it up again. My 11 month old male veiled had a very watery urate this morning. It left more of a big white splat on the floor of his enclosure rather then the nicely formed-hanging from the plant just under the poop that he normally has. He has been getting 1 hornworm a day for a week and a half. Along with his crickets, calic worms, super worms. I also offer him dubia but he wont eat them. He gets an occasional wax worm, some meal worms every once in a while. I have read that the hornworms can cause it to be runny but would 1a day be enough to make it that bad?
Click to expand...

I'm brand new to chameleons (not even two weeks!), but not new to birds which share many similarities with reptiles. The urate/urine portion of the poop is from the kidneys. If a bird is very hydrated, the urates might be more runny than is usual due to the increased urine volume. I suspect your chameleon is just very hydrated.
 
Undigested bugs in poop

A couple of days ago I bought a young male veiled. He weighs over 70 grams, so he isn't that young.

He looks to be in wonderful condition. On his first day, he was hunting and eating crickets before he had even warmed up (the room is in the low to mid 60s at night). He just ate and ate and ate all day long. I didn't count the crickets, but it must have been over a dozen medium crickets. I also fed him some soldier fly larvae. (I think they are sold as Phoenix worms.)

He looked to be in very good flesh. I think it was on his first day, he strained and passed a huge poop. The urates suggested a bit of dehydration. When I looked at his poops, I found if full of rocks and big chunks of bark. It made a grinding sound as I pulled it apart, so it couldn't have been good for his GI tract. Because I was worried that all the sharp hard garbage he had eaten might damage his GI tract as it passed through (and I hoped it passed through), I kept giving him as many bugs as I could.

I gave him lots of soldier fly larvae.

Yesterday, he had his second poop, which was a lot smaller (and not full of rocks and bark). The urates looked great. The poop ended up smashed and I wasn't able to really look at it, but there were completely undigested soldier fly larvae in it, which really bothers me. The stool was not watery; it just had undigested larvae included. They almost looked like they had crawled over to the poop and died on top of it. They were quite clean and separate.

If I can get a fresh stool sample, I'll run it down to my avian vet who also treats reptiles.

Could this all be normal? He ate so much he might very well have overwhelmed his GI tract and passed everything more quickly than he would have if he had a normal amount of food in his gut. I wanted to over fill his gut so that it would cushion any sharp bits from whatever he had eaten before I bought him.

Thanks for any help.
 
No big deal. Reptiworms, phoenix worms they can be a little hard to digest. As they get bigger they swallow them whole some times and they come out the other end.
 
Great thread I love how much you can learn from it.

but I have a question, if your cam seems to be constipated or compacted what can youto do help him get the process going?
 
Grainy orange urate.

Don't know why they are organe.I personally give him a lot of water from mister.Am I over hydrating. Has Grainy texture.Like sand.
 
Still sounds like your cham is not getting enough water. They can be shy at times, and might not be drinking while you are watching. Do you have a dripper set up? Pictures are also like a thousand words. Let see the poo. :rolleyes:
 
This is the most amazing thread ever. My girlfriend just walked into me staring intensely at poo.. "I don't even want to know" and walked away. Hahaha. Thanks for all the great info guys!
 
What does grey poop mean?

Im a new mommy to a baby cham.. She didnt poop at all for about 2 weeks but the vet said it was probably because she was getting used to her enviroment.. After another week still no output. I just happen to read that the heat lamp helps with digestion so i got her a higher watt bulb and bam! I was up to my elbows in fresh poop... It looked normal for about a month.. And then yesterday i noticed it was very grey.. Not even close to brown. But i cant find any information on grey poo... Is it normal? I included a pic to help identify.
 

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How in the world did you get the pics of the champs pooping! Camp out? Amazing. Great info.
 
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