Normal stable weight is a big characteristic of good health in uromastyx. Weight loss is not normal, and can be caused by various issues. In this post, we will cover why your uromastyx might be skinny and what to do if your uromastyx is losing weight.
Advice in this post is for guide only, please take your uromastyx to the vet if it’s skinny (new uromastyx) or losing weight. Tests are crucial for accurate diagnosis, so don’t waste precious time.
Signs that your uromastyx is skinny are:
- Wrinkly skin
- Thin neck
- Tail, especially base of the tail, too thin and flat
- Thin legs
- Bones sticking out (around hips)
- Issues with walking, wobbling, dragging, shaking, swollen limbs (also signs of MBD)
First of all, you must weigh your uromastyx once a week, to keep track of its weight. Keep a diary, and write it down, as it can be easy to forget specific numbers. For weighing, you can use a food/jewelry scale that weighs to nearest 0.1 grams, like this.
Reason 1: Your uromastyx has a parasitic infection or other health issues
Parasitic infections are one of the big reasons why uromastyx lose weight or fail to gain weight despite eating. Uromastyx have a normal parasitic load in the guts (gut flora) to help them with digestion. But due to poor living conditions and too much stress, the load might become too high, causing problems.
Many wild caught uromastyx suffer from a high parasitic load, so you must take the poop of any new wild caught animals to the vet for a parasitic check. If an infection is confirmed, worming will be necessary. Shipping, stress and lack of heat and light can cause the infection to develop too.
Captive bred uromastyx might also suffer from a parasitic infection. It’s always a correct practice to check the poop of new uromastyx. Especially if you are unsure of a seller’s trustworthiness. Quarantine new uromastyx for few months in a separate tank and room.
Parasitic infection will cause weight loss, diarrhea and even blood in poop. You might also notice bloating in your uromastyx. If your vet confirms an infection, worming will be necessary. Parasites can cause diarrhea, and this can then lead to dehydration. Severe dehydration can then lead to death.
However, worming also disturbs the good gut flora, so your uromastyx might not eat properly after the treatment. A good thing to do is to consider reptile probiotics or even add some healthy uromastyx poop to the food. This will help replenish normal gut flora. Make sure to get advice from your vet.
Reason 2: Wrong tank temperatures and humidity
To digest food, grow and gain weight, your uromastyx needs to have high temperatures in the tank. Without high temperatures, your uromastyx can’t keep constant body temperatures or digest food. Low temperatures for prolonged periods of time cause weight loss, metabolic bone disease and more problems.
If you have got a uromastyx that is already skinny, make sure you provide enough heat, a high output UVB source (10-14%) and bright lighting in the tank. Bright lighting is important to stimulate appetite and normal behaviors in uromastyx.
Ideal temperatures in a uromastyx tank are:
- 95-110 Fahrenheit (35-43.3 Celsius) on a warm side
- 80-85 Fahrenheit (26.6-29.4 Celsius) on a cool side
- 131-140 Fahrenheit (55-60 Celsius) on a basking rock
- 70-75 F (21-24 C) at night
You can read a full lighting and heating guide for your uromastyx here.
Reason 3: Impaction
The main reason of impaction is loose substrate, offering bugs (especially ones with a tough shell) and other foreign particles.
Please never house baby uromastyx under 4-5 months old on any loose substrate. Some loose substrate might cause impaction even in older uromastyx.
Corn cob, porridge can all swell in contact with water, so avoid. Don’t use millet or seeds as substrate, as your uromastyx can get too filled on them. Walnut shells, other shells and sharp silica sand might damage intestines and even cause bleeding.
Never offer any bugs to your uromastyx. Bugs are unnecessary in their diet, and overtax liver and kidneys. Some bugs also have a tough shell and can cause obstruction. Offering high protein foods is especially dangerous when a uromastyx is dehydrated. Without proper hydration, kidneys can fail if uromastyx consumes high protein foods.
Most uromastyx over 5 months old do well on some loose substrate, such as washed playsand mixed with topsoil and dry clay.
Dehydration is one of the main causes why uromastyx can’t pass small amounts of ingested substrate. Make sure to hydrate new uromastyx – most skinny uromastyx will also be dehydrated. That’s because they get most of their moisture from salads.
What to do if uromastyx is skinny?
Step 1: Check its poop for parasites, blood for deficiencies, and rule out other possible issues
Many uromastyx that are skinny have a high parasitic load, due to poor living conditions or being caught from the wild. As discussed above, please have the poop checked for all new & ill looking uromastyx to rule out an infection. If your uromastyx receives worming/antibiotic treatment, work to get its gut flora back to normal.
Please also have a blood test to rule out any deficiencies – especially calcium. Very low calcium levels in blood will cause a Metabolic bone disease, causing irreversible damage if not treated quickly. Injections might be necessary for very deficient animals to save them.
Other causes of not eating might be impaction, tumors, digestive system issues, stones and more. To summarize, please have your uromastyx checked to make sure to recognize issues before it’s too late.
Step 2: Make sure your uromastyx is properly hydrated
Before you start feeding your uromastyx more food, you must make sure that it’s properly hydrated. Dehydrated uromastyx won’t be able to eat properly and digest food. What’s even worse – dehydrated uromastyx must not be offered any high protein foods such as legumes. That’s because it will overload the liver and kidneys.
Many skinny uromastyx will be dehydrated, because the main source of moisture are salads. Signs of dehydration are lethargy, sunken eyes, wrinkly skin, small to no urates (white part of poop). When a uromastyx is hydrated, it will look alert and plump, urates will be present in the poop (and even some liquid pee).
To hydrate a uromastyx, soak it in warm water in the morning for 5-10 minutes to let it drink and soak in moisture. However, make sure to dry it properly to prevent tail rot and infection. Only soak while the problem persists, as soaking uromastyx can cause issues.
After that, place it to bask in the tank. Spray the salads with lots water, as well as leaves in the tank. Uromastyx will get up in the morning and lick the water as it would do in the wild.
Only after you are sure that uromastyx is hydrated, you can feed more food, including legumes 1-2 times a week (in moderation).
Step 3: Offer lots of fresh vegetables/greens and some seeds/bee pollen
After your uromastyx is hydrated, you can start feeding various fresh greens and vegetables. Staple vegetables and greens include dandelion greens, mustard and collard greens, endive, chicory, escarole and more.
On top of that, you can offer some bee pollen – a natural immune system booster and appetite stimulant. Offer once a week in moderation, as it’s high in protein.
You can also sprinkle nutritious seeds on salads – such as flax, sesame, hemp seeds and others. Avoid offering fruit more than once in 2 weeks, due to high sugar content.
Also, supplement the food – if your uromastyx is not deficient, lightly dust the food with pure calcium and multivitamins on alternating days. Read on best foods for uromastyx and supplementation here.
If your uromastyx doesn’t eat at all and is very skinny, you can start offering critical care food for herbivores like this, to keep it stable until you get more help from a vet. Make sure critical care is for herbivores, and not carnivores/insectivores. Hopefully, your uromastyx can eat by itself.
Force feeding uromastyx is a bad idea – and in fact it’s very hard to open their jaws. Please get your vet to force feed if required, and request a demonstration for learning purposes.
Step 4: Learn about the preferences of your uromastyx
All uromastyx have food preferences and even preferences on where you position food. Some will also have preferences on how you chop the greens/veggies!
If your uromastyx is not eating, try to place greens in different spots of the tank. Try to put them on small shallow plates. Then, you can try putting them on tile/paper without a dish.
Believe it or not, some uromastyx might hate finely chopped greens, and will prefer long pieces that they can tear with their teeth. Your uromastyx might also be a picky eater. Try various greens, to see what your uromastyx likes and dislikes.
If your uromastyx is not eating at all, you might need to spark its interest and entice it to eat. To do that, you can add fresh and strong smelling herbs to the salad, such as mint, rosemary, basil, thyme.
You can even make a smoothie in a processor – add some greens (mustard, collards etc.), then some red peppers, butternut squash, and some mint/basil/coriander/rosemary/thyme. It will have a strong smell – place it near your uromastyx so it can try it.
Thank you for reading this post! To learn more about uromastyx diet, please see this post.