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  1. #1
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    Lack of urates? Weird bowel behavior?

    Hi! I’m not sure if this has been asked before in the forums, but for some reason whenever my ball python poops/pees there’s a LOT of liquid urine and a normal looking poop but no urates. By a “lot” of liquid urine I mean he soaks literally half of the paper towels in his 33qt tub.
    I’ve had him for about a month now (he’s 9 months old) and so far he’s pooped/peed twice and ate for the 3rd time yesterday. His temps are in the recommended range and are monitored/maintained daily with a thermostat and temp gun.
    I feed him F/T rats that weigh 30g once a week. He only eats the rat if I leave it in his tub for 1-2 hours and make the room as quiet/dark as possible.
    The two times he’s pooped/peed in my care have also been within 3 days of him eating, and I read that ball pythons take 5 days to fully digest their meals and therefore usually poop one week or longer after eating.
    The first time he pooped was actually within 24 hours after he ate his meal….so based on that information, he seems to be digesting his food way quicker than normal and poops/pees more often than he’s “supposed” to.
    Besides his seemingly abnormal pooping/peeing patterns, I’m not worried about his stress because he doesn’t show any typical stressed behavior and eats regularly. I was just wondering why I haven’t been seeing any solid urates because it seems like instead of his body producing a urate it just produces a ton of liquid urine instead?

  2. #2
    BPnet Senior Member GoingPostal's Avatar
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    It's a snake, their digestive system is not like ours, it sounds like he's eating regularly and producing waste regularly, you've only had him a month, he'll push out urates whenever it's time, snakes do pee a lot of liquid on the regular and feces/urates whenever there's enough to go, it's not going to be on any sort of schedule and I wouldn't worry about it one bit, your snake sounds 100% normal.

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  4. #3
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    Re: Lack of urates? Weird bowel behavior?

    Thanks for the input! He’s my first snake ever so I’m still very new to the hobby and have no experience with what’s “normal” for them. I did a lot of research before getting him and continue to do research now, and every video/article that I’ve come across that deals with them pooping mentions that it takes them 5 days to fully digest food and that they “usually” poop 5-7 days after eating. I also read that the reason snakes pass urates is because they don’t need as much water to survive and therefore don’t drink that much, so when I saw how much liquid pee he produced with no solid urate my first thought was “is he too hydrated?” (He loves his water bowl and drinks every night and also likes to leave his tail in the bowl while his upper body explores the tub) I’m not sure if over-hydration is even possible with snakes but I tend to get paranoid easily 😂
    But I do acknowledge that he seems to be healthy and isn’t stressed. I wasn’t as much worried for him as I was just curious if other BP owners had the same experience with that.
    If the responses to this forum were mostly “yeah I’ve never experienced this with any of my snakes” then maybe then I’d start to get more worried, but it sounds like he should be perfectly fine!

  5. #4
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    You're feeding him f/t (great! ) but before you got him, did anyone else feed him live rodents?

    If so, it wouldn't hurt to have his stool (a fresh sample) checked for internal parasites by a qualified reptile veterinarian. When you mention his rapid digestion, that can be symptomatic of a snake that is literally sharing his meals. (ie. he may have worms) I would wonder why he's expelling so much liquid too.

    Now keep in mind that just because your snake defecates soon after a meal, it doesn't meant THAT's THE MEAL he just ate. It's probably the previous one for which he's pushing out waste products from. And snakes don't always "go" once for every meal they eat either. So keep that in mind.

    Snakes that actually spend time in their water bowl may also have mites, so do be aware & check closely for any mites in or near the water bowl, & on his body. They're tiny, you have to look closely. Hopefully that's not the case, but I'm just mentioning with an abundance of caution.
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  7. #5
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    Re: Lack of urates? Weird bowel behavior?

    Quote Originally Posted by Bogertophis;[URL="tel:2760820"
    2760820[/URL]]You're feeding him f/t (great! ) but before you got him, did anyone else feed him live rodents?

    If so, it wouldn't hurt to have his stool (a fresh sample) checked for internal parasites by a qualified reptile veterinarian. When you mention his rapid digestion, that can be symptomatic of a snake that is literally sharing his meals. (ie. he may have worms) I would wonder why he's expelling so much liquid too.

    Now keep in mind that just because your snake defecates soon after a meal, it doesn't meant THAT's THE MEAL he just ate. It's probably the previous one for which he's pushing out waste products from. And snakes don't always "go" once for every meal they eat either. So keep that in mind.

    Snakes that actually spend time in their water bowl may also have mites, so do be aware & check closely for any mites in or near the water bowl, & on his body. They're tiny, you have to look closely. Hopefully that's not the case, but I'm just mentioning with an abundance of caution.
    The breeder I bought him from fed him F/T mice exclusively and I was luckily able to transition him to F/T rats right away. I have him on white paper towel substrate and have handled him 3-4 times already, and so far I haven’t seen any mites on the paper towels or on his body (though he’s a banana enchi and with the freckles he has it might be hard to tell?). So he seems healthy so far and I actually keep a written log of all the dates he’s eaten/defecated so if I ever need to go to the vet I’ll have that handy!

  8. #6
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    Re: Lack of urates? Weird bowel behavior?

    Quote Originally Posted by aminevoo View Post
    The breeder I bought him from fed him F/T mice exclusively and I was luckily able to transition him to F/T rats right away. I have him on white paper towel substrate and have handled him 3-4 times already, and so far I haven’t seen any mites on the paper towels or on his body (though he’s a banana enchi and with the freckles he has it might be hard to tell?). So he seems healthy so far and I actually keep a written log of all the dates he’s eaten/defecated so if I ever need to go to the vet I’ll have that handy!
    I also have a banana. While he thankfully never had mites, I've seen enough online footage of them to compare. The freckles don't move, don't have physical texture different from scales, and don't multiply nearly as quickly.

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