# White stuff in poop = Urea, never a silly question.



## Kapidolo Farms (Jan 28, 2013)

In another thread I started the topic of urea (the white part of the poop) is being used as what others, not me, consider a silly or perhaps mondane question.

IMO it is not either. 

Urea is the foundation of the science of organic chemistry. It was the first organic compound synthesized by chemist without other organic compounds being used a building blocks.

To quote a wiki page

"Urea was first discovered in urine in 1727 by the Dutch scientist Herman Boerhaave, though this discovery is often attributed to the French chemist Hilaire Rouelle. In 1828, the German chemist Friedrich WÃ¶hler obtained urea by treating silver isocyanate with ammonium chloride.

This was the first time an organic compound was artificially synthesized from inorganic starting materials, without the involvement of living organisms. The results of this experiment implicitly discredited vitalism: the theory that the chemicals of living organisms are fundamentally different from inanimate matter. This insight was important for the development of organic chemistry. 

His discovery prompted WÃ¶hler to write triumphantly to Berzelius: "I must tell you that I can make urea without the use of kidneys, either man or dog. Ammonium cyanate is urea." For this discovery, WÃ¶hler is considered by many the father of organic chemistry."

So, if your still reading, that small group of you here on TFO that read more than a two sentence post, (thank you for the effort, sincerely) the question about urea is always a good sign of curiosity and an interest to learn. That people are first asking you'all, and not recalling this most basic thing from High School chemistry, or subsequent education, and did not turn to wikipedia is a double edge sword matter, they trust the information they get here, and/or are not inclined to search beyond TFO.

Either way, it's always a good question. And, as so many do seem to get some large portion of their husbandry information here, it seems paramount to make sure it is most accurate.

And by the sorcery of the internet, if you have further interest in what UREA is and what it indicates, click this <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urea>

Will


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## Moozillion (Jan 28, 2013)

Thanks, Will- interesting post!


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## Shannon and Jason (Jan 29, 2013)

very informative sir thanks


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## Baoh (Jan 29, 2013)

Will said:


> In another thread I started the topic of urea (the white part of the poop) is being used as what others, not me, consider a silly or perhaps mondane question.
> 
> IMO it is not either.
> 
> ...



Terrestrial chelonians mainly excrete salts of uric acid (aka urates such as sodium urate and other possible salt complexes). Not urea. What you see as white material in the waste of a tortoise is a urate salt. Again, not urea. Urea and uric acid (or urate salts) are not the same thing.

Urea






Uric acid


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jan 29, 2013)

Yeah, from the wiki page " Birds and saurian reptiles have a different form of nitrogen metabolism, that requires less water and leads to nitrogen excretion in the form of uric acid."

And yes I know chelonians are not saurian reptiles, but then exactly what turtles are is not clear in this big a picture of animals. But by virtue of the nitrogenous waste, they are reptiles, not birds/crocs. YES? Yet birds are crocs and not saurians, while chelonians are neither, yet birds and saurian reptile produce uric acid. Oh my head hurts - just kidding.

Either way the "white stuff" question is always good and now this thread is better.

Thank you.

Will



Baoh said:


> Will said:
> 
> 
> > In another thread I started the topic of urea (the white part of the poop) is being used as what others, not me, consider a silly or perhaps mondane question.
> ...


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## Baoh (Jan 29, 2013)

I am going to attach the files showing the difference because the embedding is starting to get rejected sometimes for the urea image by the host.

This one is urea.


I will post the next one after someone else posts so they do not get mixed up by the forum's auto-merging function.


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## Cowboy_Ken (Jan 29, 2013)

Posted


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## Baoh (Jan 29, 2013)

Thank you, sir.

Attached to this post is the image for uric acid.


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## Cowboy_Ken (Jan 29, 2013)

It still doesn't come out. Can you save the image to your camera and post from there?


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## Baoh (Jan 29, 2013)

I can see them. If I click on them, they blow up in a new tab. I can also embed them via my Google account, but the risk is that if I alter that account's contents, they will vanish.


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## Cowboy_Ken (Jan 29, 2013)

Ideally someone else will chime in one way or the other. I'm viewing on an iPhone, that, perhaps is the problem.


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## Yvonne G (Jan 30, 2013)

I can't speak to IPhones, but for computer folks, if you see a symbol with a little square in the center instead of the posted picture, you can just right click on the symbol and open it in a new window. Then the picture should some up in a new window. This worked for me on Baoh's first post.


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## Cowboy_Ken (Jan 30, 2013)

This is a screen shot of what I get;



View attachment 36947


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

I have now accessed this on two computers with very different hardware and software on very different networks. The embedded images in my first post in this thread generally show up, but occasionally cut out. Opening the icon in a new tab or window tends to bring up the image in that new tab or window, although sometimes it requires a refresh to get it going. The embedded images attached to the other two image posts work without incident on both systems. I do not generally access most websites with my phone, so I cannot comment on that. Thanks for the testing.


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## Shannon and Jason (Jan 30, 2013)

I am just wanting to make sure I am understanding everything. The Urea 1st pic is what our torts release when pooping and peeing correct aka urates (white stuff on the poop) or is it the other way around?


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

Shannon and Jason said:


> I am just wanting to make sure I am understanding everything. The Urea 1st pic is what our torts release when pooping and peeing correct aka urates (white stuff on the poop) or is it the other way around?



Uric acid (the second pic), in the salt forms known as urates, is what you see when your tortoise passes waste. It is not urea.


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## Shannon and Jason (Jan 30, 2013)

Baoh said:


> Shannon and Jason said:
> 
> 
> > I am just wanting to make sure I am understanding everything. The Urea 1st pic is what our torts release when pooping and peeing correct aka urates (white stuff on the poop) or is it the other way around?
> ...



See thats why I asked I figured I had it wrong. Thank you for enlightening me on this tho. Learn something new everyday!!


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## sibi (Jan 30, 2013)

Thanks Will and Baoh! This is just the kind of scientific discussions that I appreciate and it's explained in such a way that we laymen can understand. Now, maybe someone could explain what kind of greens produce the most urates in our torts, and why.


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

Greens do not produce urates. Urates are a nitrogenous (containing nitrogen) waste product of metabolism of nitrogen-containing dietary substrates (such as amino acids). Out of the three major macronutrient classes of protein, carbohydrate, and lipids/fats, protein is the only one that is truly nitrogen rich. Protein is the most important macronutrient for a living thing, which is why the ancient Greeks gave it that name (meaning "of first importance"). Protein can be converted to carbohydrate or fat (although inefficiently on a relative scale) , but neither of the other two can be converted to protein. What is absorbed after digestion are either free form (single) amino acids, dipeptides (two amino acids bound together), and/or tripeptides (three amino acids bound together). Larger combinations will not pass through the intact gut lining of a healthy animal. Aspects of nitrogen metabolism lead to the creation of waste products such as ammonia. These waste products are further modified by the body into less toxic and more manageable forms (typically urea in some animals and uric acid salts aka urates in others such as tortoises). Urates allow for less water loss via elimination of these wastes than other options. These are then cleared via the kidney.

So, given the above, it is more about the protein level and less about which greens. However, some folks misinterpret this to somehow consider protein to be bad. Protein is not bad. It is essential and it is the basis for lean tissue. Structural and function proteins in cells, organs, systems, and the entire organism. Urates, likewise, are not bad. They are necessary byproducts of protein metabolism. They just need to be safely passed. Keeping an animal well hydrated achieves this. To deprive protein is to deprive the animal of the supply of a nutritional requirement. It need not be limited, but it should be balanced, which is why it is also important for the animals to consume adequate carbohydrate (especially fiber, as blood glucose can be maintained via gluconeogenesis if necessary) and, to a lesser degree, lipids (tortoises are pretty good at synthesizing lipids based on the other macronutrients compared to -say- people with our omega-3 fatty acid hungry brains which do very poorly at it by comparison). That is why some animal protein is fine (or even good) if it is in the overall dietary context of a diet that has lots of vegetative consumption. A diet of animal protein alone would not be desirable or well-advised for multiple reasons.


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## sibi (Jan 30, 2013)

Wow! So you have actually cleared a lot of discrepancies that I had concerning consumption of protein, and greens that I fed my tortoises. When my sully developed a stone in his bladder, the vet told me that the food I was feeding him led to a concentration of urates which developed into the stone. I always believed that things like spinach contained protein that metabolized into urates; therefore, was not good to feed my tort. But, what you are saying is that greens don't have protein in it. Also, protein, in it of itself, is not bad to feed my tort--with moderation, of course, and with plenty of vegetables. It's more about hydration and the ability of the tort to pass the urates that matters. Please correct me if I'm wrong about understanding your post. Thanks.


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## Kapidolo Farms (Jan 30, 2013)

So, be sure to cite the TFO Ken, when you do a presentation and the audience guided questions turn to what does the molecular arrangement look like. Yeah.

The white stuff is still OK.

Will


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

sibi said:


> Wow! So you have actually cleared a lot of discrepancies that I had concerning consumption of protein, and greens that I fed my tortoises. When my sully developed a stone in his bladder, the vet told me that the food I was feeding him led to a concentration of urates which developed into the stone. I always believed that things like spinach contained protein that metabolized into urates; therefore, was not good to feed my tort. But, what you are saying is that greens don't have protein in it. Also, protein, in it of itself, is not bad to feed my tort--with moderation, of course, and with plenty of vegetables. It's more about hydration and the ability of the tort to pass the urates that matters. Please correct me if I'm wrong about understanding your post. Thanks.



Urates can form stones hypothetically, but they are not avoidable as proper waste products of normal metabolism. Build-up, however, can certainly be harmful (as you have witnessed with your animal). Spinach is not especially high in protein. If you consider the amount of certain grasses and other plants sulcatas consume, there may be a great amount of vegetable protein in the diet and this is a good thing. 

I am not a fan of spinach for other reasons (oxalic acid), but I am trying to confine this to the original topic of nitrogenous waste (urates) and I have posted regarding oxalates before.



> Also, protein, in it of itself, is not bad to feed my tort--with moderation, of course, and with plenty of vegetables. It's more about hydration and the ability of the tort to pass the urates that matters.



As it relates to protein, urates, and the overarching diet, your understanding captured in that quote block above is solid.


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## CtTortoiseMom (Jan 30, 2013)

sibi said:


> Wow! So you have actually cleared a lot of discrepancies that I had concerning consumption of protein, and greens that I fed my tortoises. When my sully developed a stone in his bladder, the vet told me that the food I was feeding him led to a concentration of urates which developed into the stone. I always believed that things like spinach contained protein that metabolized into urates; therefore, was not good to feed my tort. But, what you are saying is that greens don't have protein in it. Also, protein, in it of itself, is not bad to feed my tort--with moderation, of course, and with plenty of vegetables. It's more about hydration and the ability of the tort to pass the urates that matters. Please correct me if I'm wrong about understanding your post. Thanks.



I think the vet told you this because spinach is high in protien and can stress the kidney's and liver if fed in an over abundance especially if the tortoises hydration is inadequate. I don't know what kind of tortoise developed the stone or anything about your feeding habits. I only research for Leo's & Sully's because that is what I keep.


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

CtTortoiseMom said:


> sibi said:
> 
> 
> > Wow! So you have actually cleared a lot of discrepancies that I had concerning consumption of protein, and greens that I fed my tortoises. When my sully developed a stone in his bladder, the vet told me that the food I was feeding him led to a concentration of urates which developed into the stone. I always believed that things like spinach contained protein that metabolized into urates; therefore, was not good to feed my tort. But, what you are saying is that greens don't have protein in it. Also, protein, in it of itself, is not bad to feed my tort--with moderation, of course, and with plenty of vegetables. It's more about hydration and the ability of the tort to pass the urates that matters. Please correct me if I'm wrong about understanding your post. Thanks.
> ...



At ~1g/cup (compared to five times that for turnip greens as just one of many examples), depending on the form and type, it is not especially high in protein content, nor does protein stress healthy kidneys and especially not the liver. The stress to the kidney occurs from the waste product. Not the dietary substrate. Hence the need for satisfactory elimination.

I did not want to touch on this topic because people seem to take uni-topic threads very seriously for whatever reason (I prefer more information in a smaller space so I can process more efficiently, but oh well). Oxalic acid, which is a player with raw spinach in significant quantity, is a different story. So many people here focus on oxalic acid interference with calcium absorption, but that is not the source of greater harm. Loss of solubility (precipitation of calcium oxalate) in smaller structures of the kidney is directly harmful to kidney health. Passing this is considerably more difficult, as the kidney is not well equipped to pass large insoluble particulates. You see, smaller masses of calcium oxalate precipitate can serve as nucleation sites. Picture a jawbreaker or a pearl with its layers of deposited material. So it can be with calcium oxalate and other stones. The presence of smaller crystals can lead to the formation of larger stones over time as a small stone which has not been passed gains mass with future calcium oxalate precipitation, making the issue cumulative.


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## sibi (Jan 30, 2013)

Here's what I find interesting, I fed the same diet to both my sullies, hit only one developed the stone. There must be something to the matter of hydration. I had made it a habit to soak my sullies 2 times daily. Also, I always provided a large dish of water to drink from or to self-soak. I had some trouble keeping the humidity up, but all in all, I thought they were well hydrated. The vet didn't say that my tort was dehydrated; so, I was always left with questions. It makes a lot of sense that the one tort didn't have the hydration level to pass the urates; thus forming the stone. Thanks everyone for the input. Thanks Baoh for the further explanation on the spinach.


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## Baoh (Jan 30, 2013)

Honestly, there are always individual differences in susceptibility to various negative matters. You could have done everything properly and still have gotten a bum deal if that was the lot drawn.


By the way, I invite you all to do a google image search for "calcium oxalate stone" in order to get an appreciation for how freaking nasty this crap is.


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