Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Greetings all,

I am a Turtle/Tortoise person normally, but a friend of mine that works at a local feed store and got a "drop-off". Some sort of Uro. that the person did not want any longer....so now I have Stanly (poor guy had no name). He is approx. 9 inches, has a black head and legs, his torso is brown with tan "diamonds".
Stanly has some scarring on the top of his tail and what seems to be a serious case of gout in both of his front feet. I was informed that he was eating a diet of spinach and broccoli. I know that the Ca ratio is good with these foods, but the Ocylic acid levels are too high for the Ca to do any good.

I don't know much about Uromastyx's diet, or the little guy at all. I have had him now for 3 days and love him. I would like this rescue to go off with out any hitchs.

Any information would be appreciated.

~David~

there are a number of Uro sites linked right at the top of the forum, try those sites first for care info : )

best of luck!
-----
robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

I was more looking for pracitcal experience in combating Gout. And if anyone has a good feeding regiment that is in place AND Ideas on how to go about bringing Stanly from his Obviously bad diet to a good diet. Knowing that you can not "cold turkey" change their feeding regiment because it is bad for any animals dietary tract to do so. To date I have only gotten Stanly to eat once and that was some frozen greenbeans.

Thank You.
~David~
-----
1.0 Sabine Map (Tank)
0.1 Yellow bellied Cooter (Scooter)
0.0.1 R.E.S. (Yoshi)
0.0.1 G.p. Babcocki (Bradley ,i.e,M2 Fighting Vehicle)
0.0.1 ?Uromastyx (Stanly Steemer)
1.0 Lutino Cockitiel ( Tweety)
1.0 Budgie (Frosty/Turbo)
0.1 Siamese (Fizgit)
1.1 Childeren (Davyn & Kaitlyn)

David,

I attempted to reply to your request for practical information but inadvertently sent my response to your email. It has been a long week and it's only Tues! Please email me if you have any questions.

Debb

Debb,
I got your e-mail...Thank you. I have started to mix Cut Green Beans with the bad, bad, bad spinach. Stanley is actually starting to nose around his food dish only for the green beans, leaving the spinach behind. He seems to take great pleasure in running pale-male through the spinach and scatering it troughout his enclosure. I have been dusting his food with Ca powder, for that is all I have right now. I have ordered some of the T-Rex Uro powder and I am waiting its arrival with baited breath.

The light sorce I am using is a EXO-Terra Repti-sun 8.0. The basking spot is set with a 60 watt heat bulb in a "clamp" style desk lamp and is positioned 8" above his basking rock. The basking rock came from Eagle River, a local waterway (boiled to clean it up). The substrate is The Zoo-Med coconut bark bedding. And lastly I have a resin cave made by Exo-Terra. I forgot I have also installed an 8"x8" under tank heater to supplament the temprature. Right now the cool side runs 82 degrees, the warm side 95 degrees, and his basking spot is at 106 degrees. At night I run the tank down to 74 degrees (which is where the under tank heater keeps it)

I took some pictures last night of Stanley and when I figure out how to post them I will do so.

As a side note my son now thinks that his daddy is the nastiest person around or that I have lost my mind completely. Stanley deficated yesterday (the first since I received him and in the middle of his basking rock no less) There I was smearing it around with a popcicle stick on a paper plate looking for worms. It just didn't sit well with him.

Well thank you, again, for you input.
~David~
-----
1.0 Sabine Map (Tank)
0.1 Yellow bellied Cooter (Scooter)
0.0.1 R.E.S. (Yoshi)
0.0.1 G.p. Babcocki (Bradley ,i.e,M2 Fighting Vehicle)
0.0.1 ?Uromastyx (Stanly Steemer)
1.0 Lutino Cockitiel ( Tweety)
1.0 Budgie (Frosty/Turbo)
0.1 Siamese (Fizgit)
1.1 Childeren (Davyn & Kaitlyn)

the basking spot has to be at 125-130, the hot end at 90-100 and the cool end 80-85, the substrate u have is not good for them , use washed playsand or zoomed repti-sand, and get him some hides, and that brocolli is not good either , give him mustard,turnip,dandelions greens, collard greens and some kale, and dried lentils, split yellow peas, and parakeet seeds with no sunflowers

The information I have got from DeerFern Farms stated that they have seen the exact substrate used without adverse affect. He is not beeing fed Broccoli. It is my uderstanding that Mustard greens should be advoided and Kale and Collards should be limited. Once I can get Stanley eating regularly I will try to add in the bird seed.

Thank you for the information on the temprature, I will warm it up for him.

Lastly he does have hides.

Thank you.
~David~
-----
1.0 Sabine Map (Tank)
0.1 Yellow bellied Cooter (Scooter)
0.0.1 R.E.S. (Yoshi)
0.0.1 G.p. Babcocki (Bradley ,i.e,M2 Fighting Vehicle)
0.0.1 ?Uromastyx (Stanly Steemer)
1.0 Lutino Cockitiel ( Tweety)
1.0 Budgie (Frosty/Turbo)
0.1 Siamese (Fizgit)
1.1 Childeren (Davyn & Kaitlyn)

David,

Sounds like a good start. I might suggest more green leaf items such as the curly endive, escarole, and dandelion leaves (if you can find them) in place of the green beans.

It might be a good idea to increase the temp of your basking spot. Try to get it somewhere around 115 - 120. I would recommend a flood type heat bulb over a spot as spot lights can produce hot spots in a basking area especially from just 8" above. You want a nice large basking area large enough for the Uro to bask most of his body at the same time. Make sure that the uro cannot reach the light as they do sometimes like to climb and jump. This is especially true in a new enclosure.

Increasing the basking spot area will probably bring up the temps in your enclosure. Don’t worry about this as long as the temps are not exceedingly high and you have that gradient temp I mentioned earlier so that the uro can regulate his own body temp.

You might want to consider another substrate for his cage. Everyone has their own opinion on substrate so you might want to do some research on the web. I have been using red and white millet seed for the last two years without any problems. The uro might snack on them once in awhile and if ingested whole, do not seem to cause any problems. Almost works like roughage in a diet. There are some suggestions I would make if you decide to use seed so please let me know if you decide to go that route and if you would like those suggestions.

I think digging in reptile poop should be one of the top ten signs for:
“You know you are a reptile geek if….”

Good luck to you and keep me posted on how he/she is doing.

Debb

As you can see he has got scarring on his tail and his feet are all swollen. Sorry for the crappy feet pictures. Any idea what kind of Uro Sanley is?????


-----
1.0 Sabine Map (Tank)
0.1 Yellow bellied Cooter (Scooter)
0.0.1 R.E.S. (Yoshi)
0.0.1 G.p. Babcocki (Bradley ,i.e,M2 Fighting Vehicle)
0.0.1 ?Uromastyx (Stanly Steemer)
1.0 Lutino Cockitiel ( Tweety)
1.0 Budgie (Frosty/Turbo)
0.1 Siamese (Fizgit)
1.1 Childeren (Davyn & Kaitlyn)

My guess is a male mali (U. Maliensis) due to his color and length. It could possibly be a female mimic because of the short stubby tail but my guess is male. I am assuming the red glow on his head is from the light source?

sorry, meant to say male mimic