Reptile & Amphibian Forums

When I got Arthur, she was 9.5" and only 95g. A couple parasite treatments and a lot of food later, she's up to 10" and 181g. At what point is a Saharan Uro too fat? She's *very* full and round in the belly and base of the tail. Her diet is greens (rotating with dandys, mustards, collards, bok choy, radicchio, endive, etc.) with a separate dish of lentils, seeds, and crushed beans. No bugs to speak of (unless one gets too large for the anoles). A couple times a week I might add in corn or peas. My other uro Joe is still underweight and I put those in mostly for him - they're in the same cage. She's active when she's awake, but she's usually sleeping all but a few hours a day.

Is she too heavy? How can I tell? If she is, how can I help her lose it without wrecking the progress Joe's made?
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Torey
1.1 Uromastyx Geyri (Joe and Arthur)
1.1 Anolis Carolinensis (Bowser and Leeloo)
1.0 Betta Splendens (Mr. Miagi)
1.1 Felis Domesticus (Roscolux and Jenny)

Since they digest nice and slow and don't eat high fat/high carb food, to my knowledge they can't get too fat. Their tail fattens up, their belly fills with fermenting food, and they are full and fine. They aren't going to get cholesterol from eating greens, nor do they store fat across the body like we do.
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Mark Martinez
University of Florida

they digest nice and slow? says who? once again, with bad setups, and poor temps, certainly metabolism is slow, but when setup properly, and given access to what they need, metabolism is as fast as any other lizard.

look down the forum for the pics of the rescued neighbor Uro, that animal was PLENTY fat, and plenty overweight.

i am not trying to hammer at you Mark, and it is nothing personal, but take your thoughts back to base, and rebuild from there. saying that digestion is NICE and slow (there is nothing nice about a slow, sluggish metabolism!), and they can't (or won't) get fat, you have bought into the Okey-Doke of crappy Uro husbandry, where folks treat the Uro lizard like some kind of kingsnake, with their setups, temps, cooling, feeding, and metabolism thought.

folks made the same mistakes with monitors (that has changed in the last 5 or 6 years) and Gilas (still stuck on snake-like husbandry). THINK ABOUT IT! why would you keep a desert lizard like a snake? what would be the problems and consequences of doing so?
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles