Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have had the Rudis pair for about a month now, separated them and they are doing wonderfully. or (were) doing wonderfully. the male seemed more healthy than the female. eating consistantly with us watching, drinking, and just all around looked better. BUT. today i woke up and saw him and he was pitch black. he was sluggish all day, and had his eyes closed. later on, i looked closer and he had something coming from what i thought was his butt, possibly, a deuce he could not drop. i tried to get it off, but it is an actual body part, like his anus coming out basically... took him to the vet, (girlfriend did) so i do not know the exact diagnosis. i know they got the swelling down of whatever it was and had him looking normal, then she got him back in his cage and it came right back out. now we do not know if he will make it through the night....

what is this thing coming out of his butt that seems like a body part?

is this common?

what is the cause of this?

what is the cure of this?

p.s. it does bleed when we have him on a paper towel....

HELP!

is what they call it...

Yes, this is very very serious and can recur. It can be caused by a combination of things...stress, dehydration, too large and hard shelled feeders. If he'll drink you can start him drinking and drip some Pedialyte or Electrodyze on his snout so he licks it up. He'll need to "heal" for a while so keep him drinking.

he died last night : (

that is strange though because i have an automatic dripper in the cage and a hygrometer that says it is at about 70 percent humidty or higher when i manually spray the cage down which i do about ten times a day. and, the night before i noticed this problem i personally sat there and watched him drink for about ten minutes. now i still have the female and she is doing fine, but i would like to not have this happen to her too, because as of 3 days ago i would have said the male is doing fine, i actually thought he was looking better than the female but, obviously not. i am a little upset the vet let us down like that and just sent us on our way but, what can ya do i guess. i did feel like everything was going fine and everything was just as it should be but something must be off, damnit!

I'm sorry to hear about your cham.

Perhaps if you ran through the details of your set up with us, some of the more experienced members here could pick up what might be 'off'.

Be sure to include details about what type of cage (size and materials, and furnishings) and lighting you're using. What temps are they being kept at (ambient and basking)?
Also provide details of what you're feeding the chams and what sort of supplements you're using, and how you're gutloading them.
What do the cham's feces/urates look like?
How long have you had the chams, and where did you get them from?

i did about a month ago when i first got the pair. you can scroll down a bit to find the posts.
since that post i have separated them, added on long uvb flourescent for both cages and that is about it. both cages are pretty much identical though and side by side with a masonite divider between.

the males' feces looked fine before and i had never noticed anything abnormal with them as far as schedule or appearence. if anything i thought he pooped too often as opposed to not enough. kept me busy with the cage cleaning. damn the luck.

sorry to hear about that man...

This is a traumatic injury that's very difficult to treat. It may have had nothing to do with YOUR care or setup, but may have been the long term result of a problem before you ever got them. I remember that the seller wasn't too great and possibly his lack of care caused an intestinal injury much earlier. If the cham was stressed, dehydrated, constipated, full of parasites, and ended up with a partial blockage that weakened or damaged the intestine, you saw the end result. Without a full necropsy you'll never know.

The reality is, most vets have no experience with chams...even the more common cbb species. That is one of the things to check on before buying them...make sure you have some access to experienced care before you decide to keep them. I'm sorry you lost him. Good luck with your female!

It's a shame, sorry about your male dying. Carlton is right may have had nothing to do with your care. Sad, but everytime we lose a lizard (hopefully) we learn from it, sometimes just reading care sheets and articles helps.

I have a big ole male chuckwalla I raised from a few weeks, he is about 8 years now and had a penile prolaspe late on a friday night/holiday weekend.
I was in a panic for a brief moment, tried calling vets in the area and just got anwsering services. I knew I had to act fast, and remembered an article I read that said, soak in cool sugar water, and then keep wet with KY jelly and put them on a clean towel, no paper, sand,,, DO NOT LET IT DRT OUT.

I did this and every so often went in a squirted more KY jelly on his prolasped/ vent area. A few hours later I went in and saw that had indeed shrunk down. And by next morning when I woke, it had returned back inside. My goodness I was jumpin with joy, hhhehee, needless to say quite happy it had worked and that I had remembered. I am NEVER without KY jelly in the lizard medicine cabinet since that.

Again, I'm sorry about your lose , and hope you feel better soon. Best wishes with your girl, and maybe later you can get a nice healthy male and try again.
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PHEve / Eve

Hey,
I'm really sorry to hear about your cham..It's always said to hear things like this happening..I hope you are doing alright..Keep us updated on your female..Sorry I was unable to help with your male,I've been extremely busy and haven't been on the forums much lately..
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Jonny Blaze
1.0 Nosy Be Panther--Diego
1.0 Bearded Dragon--Vinny
0.1 Yorkshire terrier Brandy,10 years old
1.0 Golden lab-Dusty R.I.P May 16,2007,14.5 years old
1.0 Black lab "wiggler",2 years old
s136.photobucket.com/albums/q173/jonnyblaze_04/?sc=3

Hey thanks a lots to everyone with the advice and condolences. I try to read and learn as much as possible on the animals i anticipate prior to it, but there are just some things that you would never expect. Like that. Also, last week my g/f fed our year old bearded dragon a lightning bug, next day it died. research lightning bugs and toxic the next day and come to find out it takes just one to kill a beardy.
Lately it has been the small, weird, overlooked yet very IMPORTANT things that have been affecting my animals. I think all is well finally, hopefully no more surprises. I don't like learning things the hard way. but thanks a lot and cheers.

-Dan

This is certainly not normal. If it's bleeding it certainly sounds like a bad prolapse. This is a very serious medical situation. If not treated properly, your cham will probably die.

The most important thing to do immediately is keep the area moist. Perhaps soak it in some warm water. And then use KY jelly (water based lubricant) to keep it moist.

You're going to have to go back to the vet. This is not something you can fix by yourself at home.

If the vet you originally went to identified the prolapse, he might have pushed it back into place. Sometimes though, the prolapse will recur, and the vet will have to stitch up the area as well to make sure the prolapse doesn't recur while it is healing. In some cases they might even have to surgically remove the affected organ (usually when it's the hemipenes).

Good luck.