Urates in Redfoot???

Hi guys, my babies will be yearlings in about 1 month and I have NEVER seen urates in either one of them. Yesterday while outside (getting very warm here in TX!) Shellie pee'd a lot, which is her usual but at the end she passed little bit of whitish gritty stuff. I'm almost 100% that this came out of her tail, but URATES???? I thought RF didn't do urates. She's been eating, drinking etc as usual. No changes. Do you guys have any experience with it?

Not all tortoise species expel urates. RF tortoises might be one of these. I know my Manouria don't, and I've never seen urates in the Aldabran yard. Come to think of it, I don't remember ever seeing urates in the leopard yard either.

Maybe Shellie is the exception to the rule??

My big RF tortoise and my small RF tortoise have never expelled urates, but my new RF who is medium sized that I got yesterday had some on her vent area when I picked her up. She has also been kept really dry so it may be a contributing factor.

I have never seen them in my red foot. But he drinks water all day long.

My redfoot never does. Neither do my box turtles. Forest species are not supposed to. Urates are found in those adapted to drier environments.

I've never seen them in my red but a lady I know who keeps a red had some I told her to soak more she said she hasn't seen anymore since upping soaks

Ambient humidity has been around 81-85% and only lower on their 1/2-1 hr outing to the garden for sunning and exercise. Shellie is also the one who drinks a lot. My daughter (torts' Mom) has been in charge of their baths I'll tell her to up frequency. Shellie is really funny in her bath too. They get bathed in our unused tub/shower which has a little slant going down towards the drain hole, where the water is deeper. Shellie always marches to the deepest water stretching her neck up and her toes barely touching the bottom. I think she has discovery buoyancy and liking it.
Well I guess dehydration is the only logical explanation. I do have a well check booked for the babies today at 3pm. The simple "look/listen/touch/feel" check by reptile vet is 68$ per tortoise. My family vet charges 35$ for a cat... I'm curious how impressive the Herp Vet will be. I'll defend nicely bring up that "gritty stuff" in Shellie's pee.

Do you feed them cuttlebone? If my tortoise eats a lot of it, the excess usually comes out in white blobs, and I've confused it with urates before.

crimson_lotus said:

Do you feed them cuttlebone? If my tortoise eats a lot of it, the excess usually comes out in white blobs, and I've confused it with urates before.

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Yes, there's cattle bone in there at all times. And they do gnaw on it

I've also never seen it in any of my RF

Pearly said:

Hi guys, my babies will be yearlings in about 1 month and I have NEVER seen urates in either one of them. Yesterday while outside (getting very warm here in TX!) Shellie pee'd a lot, which is her usual but at the end she passed little bit of whitish gritty stuff. I'm almost 100% that this came out of her tail, but URATES???? I thought RF didn't do urates. She's been eating, drinking etc as usual. No changes. Do you guys have any experience with it?

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I had this with all 3 of my juvies a while back.
At the time I happened to be playing around making my own calcium blocks out of the left over cuttle bone. They pigged out and ate 3 blocks in the space of 48hrs. Poop was bitty with white particles in it for about 3 or 4 days.
This made me think that making home made flavoured calcium blocks is a bad idea.
I didn't flavour it, but when I dried the blocks out in the oven the smell became quite strong. I'm guessing that attracted them to gorge on it.

Hey guys, took our babies for well check yesterday. Shellie wouldn't open her mouth other than that fhey fully cooperated with the exam and got clean bill of health. Vet said that "gritty stuff" could have been remnants of poo in cloaca that good flow of urine just flushed it out.

Awesome! Thanks for the update

Fyi, the episode from above was just one tone thing. She's been peeing normal since then