Reptile & Amphibian Forums

anyone have pictures of what chuckwalla poo looks like? we went herping last summer in the mojave and we couldnt decide which of the two poops wwe kept finding were chucks or rats. i think the bunches of little balls were rats and the bigger lohs shaped ones were chucks.

also, whats this i hear about baby chucks needing to eat adult poo? its in the thread below.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Hey there,

The difference between Chuck scat and Rat scat is quite significant. A Chuck scat is LARGE, turns a greenish brown when dry, and is composed of plant bits. Rat scats are very small. About the size of an aspirin pill......although that would be pretty large. Generally these are dark brown. Anopther thing is placement. On top of rocks, where Chucks sit is where you'll find their doo. In the cracks around a nest is where you'll see the rats. Well lets turn our eyes from this crappy question.....j/k

hope I helped.
-Phil

you definitely did. i was right then! lol. ill have to tell my dad.

whats this about hatchlings feeding on adult poo though? ive never heard of this.
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-Marshall
1.1.0 ball pythons
0.0.1 red ackie

Chuck's kind of look like little cigars but smell a lot better. LOL. As far as the babies eating adult feces: It is documented in a lot of herbivorous lizards. The the feces contains the beneficial gut bacteria that helps in digestion. This gets the gut flora into the babies so they can digest the high fiber diet more effectively. I participated in a research paper published by Dr. Richard Montanucci in which baby chucks were offered both fresh chopped greens and chunks of adult feces and 99.9% of the time they went for the adult feces first for about the first couple weeks of their lives. Most times they did not even touch the greens for a week or so.