Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Can too much humidity cause regurgitation or vomiting. Can too much calcium dust cause the same thing? The puke is a white malto meal looking stuff and foul smelling.

Specifically in White Throats or Argus monitors

Id take a close look at the temps. If they cannot digest their food in a certain period of time, they need to expell it to prevent from being poisoned by it rotting in their system.
Sounds as if the lizard is puking a few days after eating, and the food is only partially digested.
Temperature definitely.

Can excessive calcium intake cause vomiting/regurgitation? Like I stated before it is like a white malto meal looking stuff very foul smelling. no appearant food in the stuff. I have heard that too much calcium can cause death. Temps are fine, they range in 85-90 day temps 78 cool side So I believe the temps are not the issue. I believe it was the calcium.

for a blackthroat it wouldn't hurt to have a basking spot temp of around 140 degrees. Those temps are fine as ambients but in order to digest they need a spot like the aforementioned to sit under after eating. Are they dropping deuces still?

Dueces? Their basking spot runs around 115 to 125 sorry I forgot to mention that. The temps are fine. I just want to know if too much calcium can cause vomiting. I am assuming they vomited it but I am not certain cause I didnt see it.

Sounds like normal urates to me. What makes you think it was regurgitated?

Your basking temperatures are low, assuming your animal is over a couple feet. My large species monitors regularly use basking temperatures in excess of 145 f.

Regardless of the amount of calcium intake, it should not cause a regurge in and of itself unless perhaps the lizard is allowed to eat out of the tub of calcium. Ask yourself about why you think it is a calcium problem and then ask yourself if that really makes sense.

The effects of excessive intake of calcium are seen much more over time and can effect the musculoskeletal system, cell membrane filtration (IE Kidney filtering), and can change blood mineral levels. This will be seen in any living creature that utilizes calcium in muscle function and overall structure. The result can be death, especially one that is slow and painful (Kidney failure).

Mike.

"what makes you think its regurtitation" Foul smelling. Besides putting a fish tank in the room with them, A little extra calcium is the only thing that is different or changed. The white throat was recentley changed to a bigger cage. I suppose that could have maybey contributed. I believe it was the calcium dust. I cant find anywhere it says that excess humidity causes that. It does not look like normal urates. I have fed him a rodent since and I have not seen any of the same thing yet. I hope I dont. It smelled so bad that I could smell from accross the house. I am going to take a fecal sample to the vet here soon and find out if it is internal parasites. Thats the only thing I trust any of the vets to do in this town. There are no herp vets here unfortunatley. He seems fine and normal now. we will see. Thanks for all the help anyway.

Sounds like the solids produced by their body, keep in mind that they recycle the water in their urine which causes high concentrations of white chalky stuff.
What did you feed them up to this point? If you are feeding whole animals you dont need to add any calcium. If you are feeding lots of insects you just dust them with something like Miner-all, but not all of the time, maybe every other time.
Also raise those basking temps. Every one of my monitors uses basking temps of 142-195f. My ackies use 195f, Sobeks uses 140f, the flavi-argus uses around 140-150f. This will prevent regurgitation if it is whats happening, along with air temps a bit higher (a few degrees).

For what it's worth, my 5.5ft BT basks at 140-150 degrees.

Wow.

195 basking spot. I have never heard of any place on earth that gets that hot.

SHvar is usually a pretty good basin of knowledge though so i would believe it. It seems like they would start frying at that temp though. the only reason i question this is because I may make a trade for an ackie so i am trying to bone on up basic husbandry.

You've never heard of it becuase you've never checked surface temps of the ground outside probably. I happen to live on the shore and there is an area of black sand beaches not to far from me. I have a small temp gun in my vehical (as wierd as that sounds, I get currious every now and then, and when I find snakes out here I like to get an idea of what they are using) and I hit the sand in july, you think 195 was alot, try 225 and I bet I could have found it hotter. I have no doubt tarmac in direct light gets over 200.

Ive seen regular dirt and sand, yes here in nj, hit 190, no problem. It's all about the angle of the sun, and how directly it is hitting the surface of the earth, rock dirt, white sand black sand, it all get hot in direct sunlight for 8 hours.

Mike.

That is awesome.

Theres a difference between surface temps and air temps. An air temp in a 100 degree climate can produce 160 degree surface temps. Ever step out on your drive way on a hot day? Its a lot hotter than the outside, way over 100 degrees. Some reptiles need that, and if 5 people in the forum are telling you that they need it, its probably true. Point is: Raise your damn temps.

What reptile needs 200 degree temps? I have never read anything that backs up that theory. If you know of a reputable book that can back that up. I dont know who any of you are. I am not going to up my temps that high just cause a message on here tells me to. Make any sense? If somebody on here told you to kill your monitor because it could be infected with aids and would infect you too would you do it? I am trying to get a little info on here is all. Usually when I hear something that makes sense it doesnt bring up so many questions. But when somethng doesnt sound right I will question it. If what I am told is true, about the temps. Any book I have read is fiction. I have not found anything on the internet to state they need those kind of temps.

For years that surface temps (basking)are alot higher than air temps (ambient).
Keeping this in mind, on a cool 50 f day with the sun out the asphalt can easily be 110 f.
Keep in mind that reptiles use temperatures for different things (after all they are ectotherms). When a lizard first wakes up they look for high basking temps to warm themselves up quickly so as to go about their normal daily activities, if not they would not be able to hunt and eat, therefore they would die. When they do eat, they seek out higher basking temps to get their body temp up to where they are digesting at full capacity, why, if not a few things happen.
1. the lizard cannot digest the food, and in 3 days they will have to puke it up so as to not poison themselves with the rotting prey item.
2.Their digestive systems work alot faster with good temps.
3. If they expose themselves after eating or when they first get up from sleeping for too long trying to get themselves to normal operating temperature, they can miss their opportunity to eat, or more importantly expose themselves to predators while they are cooled down and slow.
Check the surface temps of a road or runway in Florida in the morning sun when there are alligators, snakes, lizard, turtles, and tortoise all basking, you might learn something from them.
Some of us as experienced keepers learned to learn from our captives. What I mean is to give them lots of broad ranges, and options, then watch what they make use of, not subject our reptiles to what some book says, or what some new keeper trying to act like an expert says because he didnt read it in his "petstore monitor book".

But you claim to have been a monitor keeper for so long, then you already knew this, didnt you?

From discs.
ackie basking temp, to this day it has only gotten higher if anything, if I can find it, the newer pic reads 205f.

This was another albigs cage.
172 f.

My one group of beardies that layed 226 eggs in 10 months. 168 f.

One from sobeks cage, this was one spot, since then I have lowered it by a few degrees.

Because that's what those temps should make. 130-150º F surface basking is more realistic for a lizard to utilize.

Practice.

In theory if you didnt know any better you would think that the temps would do so.
In practice, in fact, the temps work great.
In practice, in fact, if you have a cage with an open top, venting in the top, or make a room of your house into a cage, you can make jerky in that cage.
Theres a difference between thinking something, and doing something. I set these cages up years ago, they currently have live healthy thriving monitors in them, and when we still had beardies (sold them all, and gave a few away over the years), we had live fast growing, healthy, thriving, rapidly multiclutching beardies in them.
If you can prove that after all these years, and with the results my reptiles have demonstrated, that they are wrong, or that my cages are wrong, then do so. If you cannot duplicate the results, or do better, then how can you start to question the husbandry? You cant...
A few generations of monitors are living proof that those basking temps work.
You have to understand what basking temps are, and how they compare to air temps before you make a false statement about 195f basking temps cooking a monitor.

Sometimes feeding to large of food items can make any monitor or heloderma erp it up. Better off useing more smaller food items than one large one. When a monitor eats an entire rodent the rodent bloats up in there stomachs and my helodermas will even lay on there backs because there bellies get so big for 1-2 days. I like useing larger rodents as the calcium is more then the smaller ones but it is better to keep meals down then chance erping them up. You can also poke a hole in the rodents gut to help prevent bloating up to big in the monitors stomach. It helps to release the gasses that bloat the rodent like a ballon.
Bob
Maxians Collection