# Tegu Tummy Troubles..



## KritterKeeper (Mar 6, 2013)

I fed my columbian,Vega, some ground beef from hare-today the day before yesterday and by now hes usually had a large BM and looks ready to eat again. This is gross but i noticed yesterday and now today hes leaving little piles of gross greyish runny looking poo(i can get a pic if anyone really wants one) so im wondering what might be going on? His stomach also looks like hes just been fed, hes pretty fat looking.
Oh also i usually feed rabbit or duck so could he maybe just have issues with the beef? Could the meat have been bad maybe or perhaps he just ate too much?
I guess im just wondering if theres something i should do for him or just keep an eye on him ..?


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Mar 6, 2013)

_More than likely it's what you're feeding. Just like us what they eat affects their system. Give him some whole prey like mice or rats and it'll firm up.

One thing I've considered about hare-today is how they process the food. Just because they process whole animals doesn't mean what you're getting or even feeding is a whole or balanced meal.

With offering whole prey (not processed) like mice, rats, chicks or what ever you know it's pretty much a one shot deal, meaning what's suppose to be there is there. 

But with processed whole prey you don't know what or how much of anything you're getting in one batch. On top of that you break it down even further into smaller portions to feed and switch to a different animal sometimes. So who knows how much calcium, protein or what ever is in that batch or the portion you're giving your tegu. 

So instead of offering one whole prey at a time you're just offering portions of what's suppose to be whole prey consisting of what. _


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## Roadkill (Mar 6, 2013)

The other thing going on is it's a novel food you've offered. The GI tract sort of has "memory", it has enzymes and such produced to deal with what is routinely fed, as well as the gut fauna is adjusted to the "typical" meal and so any time you offer something novel (yes, even if they've been eating "meat" in general, if it isn't the same "meat" then it is novel) this often causes digestive disruption for awhile until the digestive system "learns" to deal with the new food. This may sound "hocus", but it is flat out fact - the research facility I work at has to carefully monitor the food we offer the research animals and if there is any change in that diet, the investigators have to be notified and give their acceptance because any change typically causes the "tummy troubles" you're reporting - could be the exact same food just has a slightly greater fat content, or if they were previously on basic diet and then get switched to irradiated diet - still the exact same food just has run through a microwave to kill off germs. It doesn't mean your animal is sick, per se, just that their system isn't used to the new food.


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## kim86 (Mar 6, 2013)

It's true about the "memory" thing. With all animals, even humans, our bodies learn to deal with the foods we eat frequently. My work had a class about cat nutrition, and we talked about this. To put it simply, if you eat chicken a lot, your body develops "chicken men", who work on the chicken you eat. If you eat a lot of bananas, you have "banana men", haha and so on. So since beef was new to your tegus system, there were no "beef men" to handle it, and the "rabbit/duck men" are trying to figure out what to do with the beef.

I'm a vegetarian, and I accidentally ate a bunch of ham that was mixed with something else when I was drunk (true story), and it took about a week for my system to get back to normal. It wasn't the most comfortable week of my life, haha. Give him a meal of something he's used to eating, and it should help push out the remaining beef that's upsetting his tummy. Good luck


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## SnakeCharmr728 (Mar 6, 2013)

Bubblz Calhoun said:


> _More than likely it's what you're feeding. Just like us what they eat affects their system. Give him some whole prey like mice or rats and it'll firm up.
> 
> One thing I've considered about hare-today is how they process the food. Just because they process whole animals doesn't mean what you're getting or even feeding is a whole or balanced meal.
> 
> ...



VERY good point!


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## KritterKeeper (Mar 6, 2013)

Thank you for the responses..that stuff totally makes sense. Now i have a few more questions..
I have no issues with feeding whole foods so do you guys think that would be a better diet long term just feeding whole foods? 
My only concern with that is i believe i read that babies/young mice/chicks dont have enough calcium in their bones. 
If hes big enough for adult mice is that an adequate diet? or can/should i still give the duck or rabbit(perhaps with added calcium) sometimes too? 
I guess i need to think about it more because I was actually thinking about ordering more meat today and I was also considering ordering organ meats since i wont be ordering the beef again..good idea/bad idea? 
For the most part so far hes been fed duck and rabbit from hare-today without any issues and some days i feed fuzzies or crickets and occasional roaches. 
On one hand you have ppl saying 'always try to give a varied diet' and some say 'stick to basic foods' - i just want to give him the best foods possible whatever they may be. 
Are there other options for whole foods besides just mice and chicks that my columbian can eat?


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## Bubblz Calhoun (Mar 6, 2013)

_They're omnivores so I go with variety, get them use to a variety while they're young and you'll have less feeding issues later. 
Whole prey doesn't just consist of furry animals or insects either, you can add scales, feathers and other things to it as well. What ever's available to you. 
For baby animals it depends on how old they are and skeletal development since (in the calcium department) they can be more cartilage than anything else. They have calcium just not enough for animals that grow as fast as tegus, so at times (depending on the type) we supplement them with more calcium._


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## Roadkill (Mar 6, 2013)

> They're omnivores so I go with variety, get them use to a variety while they're young and you'll have less feeding issues later.



I don't think I could agree with Bubblz more.


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## apocalypse910 (Mar 17, 2013)

Bubblz Calhoun said:


> But with processed whole prey you don't know what or how much of anything you're getting in one batch. On top of that you break it down even further into smaller portions to feed and switch to a different animal sometimes. So who knows how much calcium, protein or what ever is in that batch or the portion you're giving your tegu.
> 
> So instead of offering one whole prey at a time you're just offering portions of what's suppose to be whole prey consisting of what. [/i][/font][/size]



On the rare occasion I've seen runny stool with hare-today whole prey has helped. I think it is just a result of fur and non-digestible roughage more so than any nutritional correction. I've really only had a problem with feeding him quail though - he does seem to get runny stool with both ground quail and whole so I don't really feed it anymore.

I don't really agree that you are guaranteed a better nutritional balance with whole prey. The biggest issue is that very few foods if any inherently have a perfect nutritional balance. The number of whole prey animals generally available are pretty limited and come down to various sizes of mice and rats - maybe some chicks if you are lucky. With hare-today meats you can offer a much wider variety (I usually keep at least 8 different meats on hand). Each meal may not be nutritionally perfect but the overall diet has a much better chance of being complete. If you were feeding one type of meat all the time it might be a problem, but as long as you are providing variety I don't see it being an issue.


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