Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My name is Marcie, and I am addicted to uros. That's what I would say at a uromastyx anonymous meeting. My boyfriend and I bought TWO more uros to make a total of 7 uros. Yikes! The two malis are extremely healthy looking and chubby and happy. However, we were just watching them in their tank and noticed that the male has this weird twitching. It looks like his toes are tapping and you can see the muscles in the forearms twitching along with it. He doesn't seem to be in pain, but we are just curious to what this could be. I was wondering about some sort of muscle spasms b/c he maybe didn't eat or get enough calcium. But that's just a random guess. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Marcie

A few different things can cause spasms. The one you already mentioned is calcium deficiency. Spasms can also occur from liver and kidney failure. The fact that the spasms occur rapidly in succession does not bode well. Possibly problems include:

Metabolic Bone Disease/Calcium deficiency: get him eating leafy greens that are high in calcium such as mustard greens, collard greens, turnip greens and endive. If you have it, dust his greens with calcium CITRATE as it is more readily assimilated in herbiverous lizards. (Carbonate is assimilated well only if taken with protein such as crickets). If he is not completely stressed by the move: ie eating, try and give him some natural sunlight. Make sure you have an excellent UVB source such as a mercury vapor bulb.

Kidney Failure: Were his previous owners feeding him crickets? Kidney failure is common in herbivorous lizards that are fed animal protein. Stay away from crickets, mealworms or any other source of animal protein. Also, he may be dehydrated which causes more stress on the kidneys. Drip some water on his snout and see if he drinks and/or give him a 15 minute soak.

Liver Failure: Liver failure is usually a side effect of kidney failure as the kidneys transfer unprocessed toxins to the liver. Is this Mali a fresh import? Oftentimes distributors that sell imported animals will administer deworming medication themselves without consulting a vet. An overdose of medication can cause liver failure.

And remember, if it gets worse take him to see a vet as soon as possible. Hope he gets better,

Peter

i'v had my uro for a little over a year now, not sure of her age but i'm guessing 2 or so. she had the same twitching toes for about 2 weeks on and off, it hasn't come back but when it does i'm going to take her to the vets. some one recomended she might be alergic to some kind of food i was giving her. her main diet is collard greens, kale, and mixed frozen vegies. she gets occasional baths and doesn't get any more insects. she also has a uvb light, is there any thing else that may have caused her twitching or is it something i'm doing wrong?

Well, I'm still working on my uro's diet. It's kind of difficult to get her to eat enough greens I think (guess I've spoilt her on dandelions). The last thing I heard was that kale and collard are not that good as a base. Whether or not they are part of the cabbage family doesn't seem to be entirely clear. I reckon they are, based on their botanical names. Any way.. I was advised to base the diet on turnip greens and mustard greens rather than collard. Trouble is. It's very difficult to get those where I live (Sweden). Turnip is grown as cattle food over here, and is not for sale in normal food stores. And I've never seen any mustard greens around..I found one type of turnip in the stores (greens cut off as usual..) and I'm currently putting them in water in order to get them to grow back their greens. I'll have to get mustard seeds I think. Shame I don't have a garden. Then I could just fill it with uro food

This got a bit off topic. Sorry. I don't have any idea as to why your uro's twitching. My one did it a while ago, but that was her head and whole body. It went away after she finished her shed A foot seems to be a different thing though. The only advise I can give is to cut down on the collards and kale.