Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi:

Just saw this:

Posted by: ryancentini at Sat Mar 8 20:06:39 2008
Biliverdin is the end product of heme catabolism. Biliverdinurea can indicate a hepatic disease or hemolytic anemia. However the urates may just be green from pigment diffusion from the feces.
Ryan
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Our baby rat and baby corn snake have both had lightly green-tinted urates now for the past couple weeks. Both were eating very small pinky mice (2-3 twice per week), but the rat snake has now been bumped up to 1 pinky rat per feeding. I thought I even saw a bit of green in our baby boas urates. But ours are not showing VIVID green, just a light tint. No one's been to the vet yet-- I'd like to keep it that way. Is this still within normal? Does it have to do with the quality of the food (ie do I need to get different food?)? Next time they pass urates and I see it, I'll post a pict.

Thanks,
Antigone

Hi there I still have this problem with a couple of my bull/gopher snakes. I think it might have something to do with the amount of food being given (I THINK) not sure. Im going to give this a run as I have already tried:

-A change in water being given to the affected snakes.
-Raising the temps in affected snakes enclosures also lowered temps a bit.
-Trying diffrent substrates-newspaper,paper towels,sani chips,aspen bedding.
-Mice from diffrent sources.
-None of this solved or helped the problem.

I think it has somethig to do with the amount of food being given to your snakes as well as mine.

You said they were eating 2-3 pinkie mice twice per week correct? Also, that both your snakes were babies?

My snakes are also younger and were getting 2-3 small prey(pinkies and small fuzzies) items once a week-I think this is taxing to the young snakes digestive systems in some way but im am not sure about this.

I am going to try for each of the affected snakes 1 prey item per week or reasonable size. The affected snakes are all healthy and active.

I just did a 2 week period without food to clear their systems. I will let you know the resutls of my feedings in another month.

If this does not work I might try blood testing on all the affected snakes as fecals have come up clean of parasites. Sorry for the long post but this has been driving me crazy for some time now.