This was definitely far beyond what would be considered normal. If you notice the urate on the right side in the photo, it has a bend to it. That is what was poking out against the sides of his tail. My guess is that due to that bend it became lodged and he was unable to pass it, which then caused the the rest of the urates to get backed up. Bloods and Short Tails actually urinate A LOT on a pretty regular basis (a couple times per week at times), which he had not been doing. Judging by the size of these hardened urates and the amount of them and the fact that he hadn't defecated since December, I think it's pretty safe to say that these urates have been building up for many months. So, waste from months worth of feedings would keep accumulating due to his inability to defecate and he would swell up like a balloon. I feel like this must have been causing him a very difficult time digesting his food properly then in turn, causing him to regurgitate. Does that make sense?
Either way, I'm just sooo glad we were able to get all of that out of him! It obviously saved his life... I was prescribed Panacur for him (as a precautionary measure) at the vet back in January and I had decided against giving it to him at that time. He had stopped regurgitating clear up until about a month ago then he regurgitated again. I took him off of food again for another month, while treating his water with Nutribac. He has had 2 small meals since I started feeding him again a couple of weeks ago. I have been very concerned about how he hasn't been putting on weight or growing properly and how his spine continues to stick up more than it should no matter how much he eats or how fat (swollen up) he gets, so 2 nights ago I decided to go ahead and give him the Panacur as a precautionary and to be able to rule out parasites. That was when we discovered that he had impacted urates. So, anyway... He will get his third and final round of Panacur tonight and afterwards I am going to mix some Nutribac up with water and syringe a nice dose of Nutribac down his hatch to get some good healthy probiotics working in his gut and help replenish any gut flora he may have lost through all of this. I'm going to give him a couple more weeks off of food then start him back up on very small prey items and slowly work him back up to appropriate size meals. Hopefully this will be the end of his problems so he can get back to growing properly...
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