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Thread: passing undigested food?

  1. #1

    Default passing undigested food?

    I am an experienced animal owner who recently dove into the world of reptile husbandry for the first time since childhood. I have been keeping snakes for over a year but a couple months ago gave into a years' long desire to get a tegu. So far it's amazing, but today I noticed something that concerned me.

    My male B/W argentine tegu yearling, Terezi, was diagnosed with hookworms a month ago after a cloacal prolapse. I believe that he had them when I bought him, and when I took him to the vet it was not yet apparent. I've never had an animal contract any form of parasite and he's been indoor and in a clean tank, so I doubt it was something I did wrong. We gave him deworming meds and an antibiotic and he's had no more prolapses and has been growing noticeably since the parasites were taken care of. Today when cleaning his water I found undigested food in there, instead of just a lump or two of poo like when he usually makes his bowel movements. I've never seen him do this before; even when he was infected his feces was clear of undigested particles, but in the water I found two whole mealworms and the skin of a blueberry. He's successfully digested crickets and superworms before so I have no idea what this means. Is this normal, or something to be concerned about? Should I take him to the vet?

  2. #2

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    Has he had mealworms before? I heard mealworms having more keratin and being more difficult to digest than superworms. What about blueberries? Has he had them before?

  3. #3

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    He has had mealworms before, though a smaller size of them. I did a lot of research about tegus and mealworms because there's a lot of old wives tales about them and whether or not you can feed them to your pets safely. When I went to the store they were out of both crickets and superworms and I was really needing to get something to feed him because I need to make more meatballs and they hadn't had crickets for days, so I got a large size of mealworms.

    Blueberries he eats with nearly every meal. He loves them. I've never had a problem with feeding him berries, ever.

  4. #4

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    Not so sure about the berry part, mealworms though I can see him having difficulty digesting. I am not much help for the blueberry skin. I think it might be something like the skin on corn for humans? Humans can't digest the skin. But if you never had this problem before, then I am no help to you.

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