Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I fund the culprit and tot it may help others in prevention, I originally obtained 2.4 and decided to separate them in trios, when building a new enclosure I opted to reuse old cork bark from previous monitor cages, I rinsed these whit hot water and but them in the cage as is, still wet. This female simply slept under the bark one side touching the upper wall, the cork remained wet a few days as my cages aren’t dehydration chambers. Blister disease is a bacterial disease that is most often contracted when faeces are combined with water, its easy to avoid and treat however it spreads fast if undetected.

This may be another source of potential problems.
My humidity range in the enclosures has been approx 12%.
I do not use a dirt substrate, nor do I add water to the existing sand substrate.
From day one I have included a great deal of greens in my uros diet.
The abundance of liquid fecal matter(or very wet feces) has always been a messy situation.
This is possibly the source of my blister disease?
For those of you who have tried it , cleaning the fecal material from the underside of a uro is very hard to do.
Getting it out of the tail whorls is close to impossible.
I have read that in nature the diet is composed of dried plant materials as well as greens.
So I thought about a change of diet...I feed my uros a combination of dried beans, alfalfa, finch diet and seeds along with the greens.
Recently I have tried the Mazuri tortoise diet.
The drier food items have resulted in much firmer fecals with much less excess water waste.
The biggest problem is that the one uro that is suffering refuses to eat, so dehydration is a main concern.
The mazuri diet(as mentioned by Doug Dix) seems to be a very good source of nutrition and possibly a fix to the problems of too much moist greens in the diet.
This is my most current course of action.
Ed
>>I fund the culprit and tot it may help others in prevention, I originally obtained 2.4 and decided to separate them in trios, when building a new enclosure I opted to reuse old cork bark from previous monitor cages, I rinsed these whit hot water and but them in the cage as is, still wet. This female simply slept under the bark one side touching the upper wall, the cork remained wet a few days as my cages aren’t dehydration chambers. Blister disease is a bacterial disease that is most often contracted when faeces are combined with water, its easy to avoid and treat however it spreads fast if undetected.
>>

Interesting observation, Ed. I hope your new diet helps to alleviate the problem. I have used millet as a substrate for years per Doug Dix's caresheet. I understand that is does not allow for burrowing and it is expensive to fill a 4' cage with. On the other hand, when the uro eliminates, the seeds stick and the mess is quickly dried with the seeds adhering to it. It is very easy to clean and can be done quickly. I have been happy with that aspect of the substrate. How are your guys taking to the mazuri? I bought a few pounds, and mine have picked out the veggies and spread the rest around. I don't think they actually ate any at all. I wish Thor a speedy recovery and hope you can get the others to accept your new diet. Good luck.

Pam
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2.3 varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Dorado, Oro, Dora, Freckles & Amarillo)
1.1 varanus acanthurus acanthurus (Tabasco & Sprite)
1.1 u. macfadyeni (Amani & Abeba) RIP Ayana
1.2 u. ornata (Husani, Zari, & Bintu)
1.1 u. ocellata (Zuhri & Ashai)
0.0.1 u. a. aegyptius (Halima)
1.1 hyla chrysoscelis (Pudge & Squirt)

Hello Pam-
It was a tough sell at first. But I did the starve them for a few days, then introduced the food to them.
They go crazy for it now. I hand feed them if I am not in a rush.
Each of my large males and females eat them 10-12 at a time...Sometimes they do not chew them..that made me a little wary at first....swallowing a pellet that large !!!!
I just ordered 25 Lbs for mazuri .com
I still offer them the greens but not the huge plateful as in the past.
I have considered the seed substrate recently, and I think for the mostpart dry sand doesn't offer a very good burrowing function as well. So I may make the switch. I just have to finish off the 6 bags still in the garage waiting to be used up...Thank for the thought.
Ed

>>Interesting observation, Ed. I hope your new diet helps to alleviate the problem. I have used millet as a substrate for years per Doug Dix's caresheet. I understand that is does not allow for burrowing and it is expensive to fill a 4' cage with. On the other hand, when the uro eliminates, the seeds stick and the mess is quickly dried with the seeds adhering to it. It is very easy to clean and can be done quickly. I have been happy with that aspect of the substrate. How are your guys taking to the mazuri? I bought a few pounds, and mine have picked out the veggies and spread the rest around. I don't think they actually ate any at all. I wish Thor a speedy recovery and hope you can get the others to accept your new diet. Good luck.
>>
>>Pam
>>-----
>>2.3 varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Dorado, Oro, Dora, Freckles & Amarillo)
>>1.1 varanus acanthurus acanthurus (Tabasco & Sprite)
>>1.1 u. macfadyeni (Amani & Abeba) RIP Ayana
>>1.2 u. ornata (Husani, Zari, & Bintu)
>>1.1 u. ocellata (Zuhri & Ashai)
>>0.0.1 u. a. aegyptius (Halima)
>>1.1 hyla chrysoscelis (Pudge & Squirt)
>>

I am sorry I don’t know much about uromastyx nutrition, at least not enough to advise anyone about it. However I do know about disease of husbandry and how to cure them at once.
Maybe you are right about the wet faeces, I can see how one uro can carry these faeces on top of cage mate’s. Now that I’ve experienced blister with uromastyx I will be more careful (especially with shelters) I have a bad habit of spraying the inside when reptiles are in shed.

This photo is of my blister female, only one application of met-blue completely stopped the disease from spreading, don’t ask me how it works as I am still in the blue about this, all I know is one can use a multitude of antibiotic ointments and drag this for weeks, some to the point of antibiotics, or burst the bubbles and use this 89cent methylene-blue and go on with your life.

With your permission Id like to express some tots about your uromastyx, iv learn not to give my view when its not requested.

Hey there-
Regarding the cagemates...I cannot house any of mine together. The will fight to the inth degree.
So they are single until breeding time.
Methylene blue is an interesting topical that I have seen used in Koi ponds but I have not been recommended by the vet to use that.
I would certainly throw any ideas at him to get some feedback.
I might even have some on hand for my koi pond...thankfully never had to use that in there !!!!
Knock on wood!!!!!

Hey any opinions are welcome by me. I hate to see people get flamed for opinions.
Shoot away.
Thanks-Ed

>>This photo is of my blister female, only one application of met-blue completely stopped the disease from spreading, don’t ask me how it works as I am still in the blue about this, all I know is one can use a multitude of antibiotic ointments and drag this for weeks, some to the point of antibiotics, or burst the bubbles and use this 89cent methylene-blue and go on with your life.
>>
>>With your permission Id like to express some tots about your uromastyx, iv learn not to give my view when its not requested.
>>

I started using met-blue back in the 80s on crocodilians, captive crocodilians often develop skin abscess from dirty water, later iv use met-blue on varanids for treating blister dieses. I don’t know why it works but it dose the job.

I can only offer experience based on other herps sins uromastyx are new to me! however I think it’s pertinent.
Needles to say this is just an opinion and everybody has one, but we all have different experiences, I for one don’t follow rules and prefer to pave my own road thru trials and errors.

In treating blister disease I encounter 2 major problems, the first being petroleum base ointments ( most antibacterial ointments are!) my second problem was dehydration.
This bacterial disease needs a humid environment to survive and multiply, Ointments encapsulate and allows the bacteria to flourish under skin, this is how we go from a little bubble to large scabs. The best solution is to drain the abbesses and allow it to dry, once drained met blue stops the progression and keeps the area free of bacterial growth for some time.

I use to keep such animals in dry cages thinking it will help the healing process, wrong!
In reality it prevents healing, first dry skin cracks allowing fluids out giving new breeding grounds for bacteria, the cycle starts over and over, new skin formation need to keep well hydrated, next especially for arid land reptiles witch are often affected by both aestivation and hibernation in nature, these animals are genetically programmed to shut down and stop feeding in these conditions, this slowly leading to dehydration furthermore halting healing, septicaemia resulting in weakened host.

It took years before I could successfully treat African varanids from blister disease, simply because it was on the belly and they are always dragging the belly somewhere, I lost many over and again thru the years. I have to mention these are animals from dealers and not only from my collection, part of my hobby is to acclimate imports.

The solution was to lower the temps allowing the animals to shut down there metabolism, place them in a well hydrated bin and forget about them for weeks. In this condition the lizard would sleep as if hibernating allowing healing in a stress free environment, no weight lost was recorded and only one or two met-blue application was needed.

This said I can only express what I would do if I was in your situation, by all means this should only be attempted if you are ready to take full responsibility for any possible outcome. Thru the years iv been in more cat fight with veterinarians then I care to remember, nothing I do fits there mould, nevertheless I keep succeeding where they keep failing simply because I am the keeper and know my animals, I can and will put the time and efforts, I will make the observation and correct any situation on the spot, most vet are to busy to waste countless hours on a lizard, we do it out of passion and put our hart and sole to it.

I would fine the right temp where this uromastyx stop all activity and allow it to rest in a dark bin filled with dirt until fully healed, It can take weeks maybe more? But nothing stops you from checking on progress when ever you feel the need, uros have been hibernating for millions of years no need to worry.

One last observation, sand is abundant in my area, at one time I had many enclosures with only sand in them, eventually I realised it didn’t work for my animals, in my case the reason was simple, sand is sterile for ground braking critters like dung beetles and other organism that feeds on faeces and other wastes, on the other hand it’s a good nasty bacterial incubator (unless kept very dry) however then dry faeces becomes dust and still affects the host, my solution was to add dirt to the sand and sphagnum moss (not peat moss) to help in holding borrows. This helps in hydration control and make everything work well for me.

best of luck!

Did any of your vets do cultures? Is it possible that there is also a fungal component to the disease? When I used methyl blue for my fish / fish eggs I used it to prevent and treat fungal infections. If the blister disease has a fungal component, this could explain why it responds well to the methyl blue but not the antibiotics.

-Alice