Reptile & Amphibian Forums

so first of all, great site you all have here, the posts have been really helpful since I really didn't get much of a care sheet when I got my plated 3 years ago.
So recently my plated has developed a really muscular swollen area near its pecs (makes it look like it's posturing and puffing its chest out at you). Now, I'm pretty certain I haven't seen it do this before and it certainly wasn't there a few weeks ago.
Right now she's being fed a garden green mix with either meal worms, science diet dog food (maintenance right now), or crickets and its food is supplemented with a Zoomed supplement.
I'm actually thinking it may be a stress response mostly, since we recently acquired a cat a month or two ago who has now gotten big enough to be able to jump up onto the top of the cage and look down on the lizard.

Anyone know of this occurring in their plateds before? Or have any experience with something similar?

Keep up the good posts guys.......(best resource I've seen so far for these plateds)

Can you post a picture?

I suggest that you find a veterinarian and have your plated checked out.
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Scott Robert Ladd
1.0.0 Iguana (Rex)
1.1.0 African Giant Plated Lizard (Clyde, Cassie)
1.0.1 Uro mali (Wizard, Dizzy)
0.1.0 Corn Snake (Amber)
0.1.0 Red-Eared Sliders (Emerald)
0.0.1 Musk Turtle (Sausage)
1.1.0 Parakeet (Thor, Zeus)
1.4.0 Homo sapiens (Scott, Maria, Elora, Becky, Tessa)
blog: http://chaoticcoyote.blogspot.com/

Will probably be going in sometime this week....hopefully
Apettite seems good otherwise though...if only for this damn swelling under her pecs.
Here's some pics:

Pic of swelling

And another

Last one

So for anyone interested in following this up, the swelling on the pectoral region of my lizard is actually a fairly large fatty mass. On the physical we did find a small lesion on the side that had developed into an abscess, but was not the major cause of the mass.
So needless to say, we have to make some husbandry adjustments such as cutting out the dog food completely, changing the bedding (had peat moss before, going to probably go to playground sand now since it's less likely to get impacted with that substrate than regular sand and it's more closely akin to the natural habitat), and probably trying to make a big effort to make him exercise some more(maybe, we'll see how that goes)
But has anyone else seen this in their plateds at any point too?? I've had him for over 4 years now (and he was at the petstore for more than 3 before that) which seems to be significantly longer than any other I can find on the internet here.
Any suggestions in husbandry changes would be helpful since there aren't too many care sheets available for this species.

I never recommend dog food as anything other than the occasional treat, so it's good that you're cutting that out of the diet. If you want to feed a canned diet as part of the overall diet I would recommend something like ZuPreem Monitor Diet or ZooMed Monitor and Tegu diet. Both are more nutritionally complete for omnivorous/carnivorous lizards than using dog food. Most Plateds will take a very diverse diet so I would start experimenting with various nutritious feeds. You could try adding variety to the insects you feed - try roaches [feeder species, not pest roaches], silkworms, butterworms - etc. in addition to standard insect fare like crickets and superworms. Try fresh fruits and vegetables. You can also try offering prepared foods such as RepCal Adult Iguana diet [multi-colored pellets], or Bearded Dragon Diet. There are also some other canned diets such as ZooMed Box Turtle, ZooMed Iguana, TetraFauna Reptomin Softgel, just to name a few. Be aware though that most if not all canned diets are low in fiber. Variety is the spice of life with any herp species and the great thing is that with omnivorous lizards like Plateds it's much easier to provide a varied healthy diet.
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Matt Campbell
25 years herp keeping experience
Full-time zookeeper
Personal collection - 21 snakes (9 genera), 20 lizards (4 genera), 6 chelonians (2 genera)

So I think I might have not been very specific about this whole dog food thing. I actually don't base the diet on dog food...he actually only gets it once a month and not very much when he does get it. He usually gets crickets,or mealworms, or snails (really goes crazy for these) with his greens or just fruit and greens. But maybe I should try put in some more fruits and greens and leave the animal products for a once a month thing. However, the pet store he was at previously did base his diet on dog food, so there may have been some pre-existing conditions here. Needless to say, he's not going to get it even as a treat anymore, and probably not being fed as much; he is a bit of a fatty.
The question remains though, has anyone seen this in their plated before?
Also, does anyone use peat moss as a substrate for their plated, and if so, how's that working out?

The previous pet store diet is probably responsible for the fat deposits you're seeing now. It sounds like you've adjusted the diet accordingly though. I have not seen what you're talking about in any of my Plateds or for that matter any other Plateds I've seen. I have however seen excessive fatty deposits in some other lizards that were fed an excessively high protein diet. The only thing you can do at this point is cut back on the higher fat foods and provide a large enough enclosure with variable terrain so that your Plated can run around some and get exercise. As for your substrate question, I would not use the peat moss just by itself. By itself it is a very dusty substrate and has the potential to clog nostrils and be a general irritant to the lizard. Instead you might consider making up your own substrate using an all organic topsoil mixed with the peat moss and some hardwood mulch or fir bark to give the soil mix some air space. Try to avoid topsoil that might have organic fertilizers which will almost always mean cow or chicken feces - these you don't want in your substrate!
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Matt Campbell
25 years herp keeping experience
Full-time zookeeper
Personal collection - 21 snakes (9 genera), 20 lizards (4 genera), 6 chelonians (2 genera)