Found something strange!

[ChristyR]

Tonight I was getting Serpi out of his cage to do some handling and I noticed something wierd kind of stuck to his hide...it was a clump of something white. Does anyone know what this is?

[Sadie]

Pee. It's called a urate.

[ChristyR]

Ahhhhh, okay!! That's what I *thought* it might be...but being new to the hobby I wasn't totally sure.

Thanks.

[joepythons]

Pee. It's called a urate.

Its not really pee its the bone remains from the rodents .

[xdeus]

Its not really pee its the bone remains from the rodents .

Sorry, Joe. It's actually uric acid. Pee isn't too far off...

[frankykeno]

Its not really pee its the bone remains from the rodents .

Actually Joe what you are thinking of is more closely related to the droppings of owls where they expel the bones, hair, etc. of rodents as they are unable to digest those. Snakes on the other hand can fully digest these parts of the rodents they eat so do not expel a pellet like an owl does.

The hard white thing is a urate and just part of the ability of snakes to reabsorb water from their own urinary function (basically recycling it). From my understanding of this, snakes do not possess a urinary bladder as we do. Their urine goes directly to the cloaca where a process is undertaken to recapture liquid. Once this is done, the leftover is expelled as the solid urate. In captivity though with a constant exposure to their water dish (plus the liquids that exist in their prey source) they will of course have lots of water in their system so will then pass both the urate and liquid urine as they have no need to collect every drop of liquid before it's passed out of their bodies.

[recycling goddess]

thanks jo! GREAT post!!!

[Laooda]

Owl poo is KOOL!

[joepythons]

Actually Joe what you are thinking of is more closely related to the droppings of owls where they expel the bones, hair, etc. of rodents as they are unable to digest those. Snakes on the other hand can fully digest these parts of the rodents they eat so do not expel a pellet like an owl does.

The hard white thing is a urate and just part of the ability of snakes to reabsorb water from their own urinary function (basically recycling it). From my understanding of this, snakes do not possess a urinary bladder as we do. Their urine goes directly to the cloaca where a process is undertaken to recapture liquid. Once this is done, the leftover is expelled as the solid urate. In captivity though with a constant exposure to their water dish (plus the liquids that exist in their prey source) they will of course have lots of water in their system so will then pass both the urate and liquid urine as they have no need to collect every drop of liquid before it's passed out of their bodies.

Ooops sorry .I guess the person that told me that was wrong lol.Now we all know

[slartibartfast]

Owl poo is KOOL!

Owl poo is just like any other bird's poo.

The cool pellets are regurgitated. :-)