[BonnieLorraine]

My female Dara stopped eating about 3 weeks ago. She had laid three clutches of infertile eggs prior, with the last eggs being the week before she stopped eating. She didn't go to the bathroom for about a week, even with daily showers, and then when she did go, it was about 5 times the normal size. She resumed eating again for several days, we just shrugged it off as maybe she was stopped up. She promptly stopped eating again about 3 days after the bowel movement, and her calcium sacs swelled up huge, to the point they were practically dragging on the floor. She also stopped going to the bathroom again, and was laying on the floor regularly.

I took her to the vet, who took an x-ray to check the sacs and also see if she had retained any eggs as he could feel a hard mass in her abdomen. The x-ray showed the sacs were solid calcium, but no eggs in her abdomen and just large dark masses that he assumed were feces. I was told to keep up the showers, force feed her some to help push the mass through, give her neocalglucon in case it were somehow caused by MBD (though her bones looked good and she gets gutloaded and dusted crickets), and I also gave her a couple drops of mineral oil a day. Several more days and nothing other than some runny smears and rock hard urates. My friend tried to massage the lump out several times, he did get a bit here and there, but the massive lump in her abdomen was too big too come out, we thought it was cricket parts since she has been kept on papertowels. She eventually got to the point where she would vomit up the force feed and calcium, and she looked like a bloated balloon.

She finally passed 2 days ago, several hours before a vet visit to discuss doing an enema and possibly surgery. I'm rather crushed, this was my baby girl and she was fighting so hard to stay alive. Here are the pics of the necropsy to show what we found the other night. I made my friend do it, I couldn't bear to cut her open. Not sure if it will help anyone, but it might.

Two of the eggs were soft and squishy, the other two were rock hard, solid, and irregularly shaped, you can see where we cut open one. You can also see a bunch more eggs being produced on her ovary. It's like her reproductive system went haywire. All were uncalcified, which was why they didn't show up on the x-ray.

[Yoshi'smom]

Wow! Sorry to hear that about your girl! Glad you shared this with us though, I know it must be hard for you! Hugs to you!!

[sikorae]

So sad to hear of your loss, but very informative post, thanks for sharing

[jadrig]

Usually what happens is that the Uroplatus get dehydrated at 'some point'. I have noticed that they get some sort of blockage due to cricket/roach parts that they can normally digest. without food, they can go a long time...she looked like she had at least 3 weeks of carbs left in her tail...but they die due to mechanical/electrical failures...calcium. It is like the snowball effect...

Was there any sort of physical blockage right before the cloaca? Ovipositors from crickets...wings...anything like that?

[BonnieLorraine]

Nope, nothing at all in her intestines, just large lumps of those solid, uncalcified eggs.

[the moof]

Producing eggs like that, in a "haywire" fashion, is actually typical for reptiles and birds; their reproductive systems don't work in the same way as mammals. All of the female dissections I have seen have come out with large numbers of eggs in various states of development; I don't think there is anything out of the ordinary here (correct me if I am wrong!)
The rock hard eggs, which you say were uncalcified (?) are what throws up questions for me; something is definitely wrong there.
Sorry for your loss my friend.

[BonnieLorraine]

Yeah, I've noticed with my other females they always have more than one set of eggs going, given the odd intervals that they lay. The solidified eggs were no longer round, I think they had been crammed in there for awhile because they were oddly shaped. My guess is she just couldn't pass them, and everything backed up. No idea why they were solid, her previous three infertile clutches had all be squishy. Thanks for all the condolences guys, it's always hard to lose an animal you've been working with for awhile, and she was definitely one of my favorites.

[klondike4001]

I have a question about your feeders, were you keeping crickets/roaches and feeding them yourself or were you buying them from a chain type store?

The reason I ask is I've seen this before in Uroplatus who have been fed insects who have had a diet high in spinach. The spinach is a natural calcium binder which causes malformed eggs and deformities in their calcium sacs.

Either way sorry for your loss and thanks for posting pictures to hopefully avoid someone else from having to go through this themselves.

[BonnieLorraine]

I breed the roaches at home. The crickets we get from the store, but we gutload them for 2 days before feeding them off. I purchase them from the store my best friend owns, and he only feeds the crickets either carrot or potato. At home it's a pureed mix of nuts, grains, powdered milk, algaes, etc, and then carrots or orange slices for moisture. I avoid spinach and broccoli with my rhino iguana and with my feeders for the exact reason you mentioned, both being high in oxalates and goitrogens. The calcium sac swelling was really odd, they were normal sized, then she stopped eating, and they swelled up huge to the point they would drag on the ground.

[pakinjak]

Hey Bonnie, I'm curious if you could share the enclosure temps for this animal? Also, did you use a light above?