Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had problems with a group of chucks that originated in the Box Canyon area, and I finally took a few adults to the vet. One big male started having weakness in first one limb then another, and I have had a devil of a time keeping weight on one female. One other female died.

So the first thing we did were xrays which revealed nothing as far as bone changes go. But the male had a GI track full of sand! The lab work reveals that there is a nutrient deficiency, but not a calcium deficiency, so the male at least has not been absorbing his other nutrients. We strongly suspect that the sand is at least partly responsible. It is also possible that these chucks have a blood parasite or a latent virus that is causing many of these issues. Where such a virus would have originated is a mystery, but I suspect that it probably would not have originated in the wild.

I just got off the phone with Doug Dix who stressed that chucks, particularly wc, do not do well on sand. I will be getting a copy of the xrays and will send them to Doug, and post them here. In the meantime, I am in the process of flushing the big male out, and both will be given Oxbow Critical care to replace nutrients and hopefully increase appetite.

I know that many keepers use sand as a substrate and believe that it is fine. I have to wonder how many animals are not as fine as we think. A friend did make a suggestion about sand use, though. If you use sand, make sure that it is only a base substrate and that most of the living surface is boulders and rocks.

I also have some of these box canyon chuckwallas. They were very hard to get started eating.I have kept them on sand but there are alot of rocks that they get between. I have had them since June and have had no problem with sand. The female did not come out for heat today or to eat but maybe she is getting ready to hibernate. Please email me off list so we can compare notes and see if these chuckwallas are from the same dealer. Please email me at jsellersiv@yahoo.com Thanks John Sellers

Hey Donna so sorry ya lost a chuck :0( very sad!

Tell your vet to check for protazoa Entamoeba I feel some of the NM collareds have carried this, but not all have been bothered by it. Some are carriers and some get very ill, emaciated no matter how much they eat.
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PHEve / Eve

I am curious if these chucks are really box canyon chucks. Box canyon chucks should be red back or black back not granites. My chucks that you can read about on this forum were allegedly box canyons. Since they were not it brought other things into question. My dealer keeps his chucks outdoors in big sandboxes if there was not enough rocks covering the sand or they were not fed food that they would eat then that might have led to excess sand consumption or bacterial infection if the food was not kept clean during acclimation. like I said before I suspect that your chucks might have come from the same dealer as mine.

I know that these chucks were sold wholesale to a couple of vendors, so we might have gotten them from the same person, but might not have. I know of at least three different vendors who sold Box Canyon chucks this summer.

I have discussed these chucks with several long time chuck keepers and we have come to the conclusion that their area is somewhat between granite and red back territory, so I believe that they are both. I have a male that came from the same area as my older redback/salt and pepper male, and he looks just like a granite with a faint red back.

My point in my first post is that you really can't know if they are building up sand in the GI track without an xray until they crash. I would especially get them off sand for at least a month or two before you brumate, but Doug also warned me not to brumate this first year in captivity, and given the problems that I have had, I wasn't going to do that anyway.

Eve, I will definitely mention that infection to the vet. We are probably going to talk again on Monday.

After talking to Doug and to Tom about these chucks, I am also pretty sure that many of their issues probably started with the fact that they were wc, then made several long trips across the country before they got a chance to acclimate. That kind of stress really can do a number on immune systems, appetite, etc.

My chucks came from green desert reptiles. They are slighly different than the average granite. They have a slight gold tint to their skin as they become more healthy. I was told by green desert that some of the chucks that he gets are redbacks. I much prefer to get captive borns in the future but GDR says he will have more this spring.I may check them out when they are fresh imports to see if they are various colors.

Imports?? From where?