Urates smelling up entire room? Or something else?

[RosieRedfoot]

So, I have Rosie, the yearling redfoot. I give her mostly dark leafy greens, fruits 1-2 times a week, and a protein source about 3 times every 2 months. 2 days ago I gave her some scrambled plain organic free-range chicken egg. Just the cooked egg, no shells. She ate it voraciously and was normal until today.

Her activity level is normal, she is drinking, not making any weird sounds or seeming to be ill. But she passed what I assume are urates since it was white and liquidy along with her poo in her water bowl. The main thing is, these were SOOOO stinky. She's done about 2 more urate excretions in the past 3 hours and they have been watery and smell HORRIBLE. I work at a vet clinic and have smelled staph-filled green abscesses and anal glands and this is worse than both!

She got an entire cage cleaning today due to the smearing of the urates everywhere... She got them on her plastron and proceeded to walk around doing some "painting".

I gave her a 20 minute soak in water that was about 88-92 degrees. Her inside pen has a warm basking rock that is about 95 on the surface, and a cooler end with sphaghnum moss that gets down to 75 at lowest at night.

I found her just a few minutes ago all smeared in white again and rinsed her off. The thing is, her mouth/beak area were white too and I found a chunk of semi-digested turnip greens (this morning's breakfast) in a pile of white goo.

So, my question is, is she vomitting up something white and smelly (like the egg if it didn't digest) or is it excessive urate excretions from the high protein in the egg?

It smells BAD, and in my month of having her, she hasn't done anything like this or been anything but healthy and happy and a voracious eater.

I took away her food for today and am going to wait and see if she does it again... On a side note, I did notice a lot of gnats in the cage, so maybe there was a piece of leftover fruit or veggies that spoiled that she buried and might have eaten. I did change out everything though and disinfected the pen/rocks.

Any experience/advice? I figure if it continues she should probably see a vet, but for now I'll do daily soaks this week to keep her hydrated and keep her pen warmer at night too.

 

[Redstrike]

I don't have any experience with redfoots passing urates. I know desert species do, but these guys are a tropical savannah tortoises from high humidity climates with good amounts of water. Sounds like you have a water dish in the enclosure and said you soak her (drop the water temp to 90ºF max), so I'm not too worried about dehydration here.

I'm guessing you gave her an entire egg? Could she be passing the egg and eating the white a second time? Seems odd to me that the egg white would re-appear white once passed through their digestive processes, but I've never given mine an entire egg before (they're still too small for that, they've only had bits of egg once).

Other than that, usually runny, strange looking, and very smelly bowel movements are associated with a parasite infestation/bloom. I wouldn't hesitate to take a couple stool samples in to your clinic. I'm an advocate for >1 sample, sometimes the parasites are missed or aren't passed in every stool, so you up your chances of detecting them. Of course, this comes at the cost of lightening your wallet...

 

[RosieRedfoot]

I cleaned up the messes so far, but if I find one in the morning/later tonight I might just put it in a baggie and bring it to work. I usually set up dog fecals and could probably set up a direct fecal smear and look at it while there and have a vet double check it. Do you know what types of parasites they typically have present in their feces (so I could know what to look for)?

 

[Redstrike]

I'm not qualified to tell you about specific parasites, your vet will have to assist you with that one. I will say a fecal float would probably give you a greater sensitivity for parasitic protozoa and/or worms (cestodes, trematodes, pentastomids) versus a smear. Absolutely nothing wrong with smears, but the floats remove a lot of fecal debris while leaving behind protozoa and worms + their ova, improving clarity of what you're looking at.

You can still get a great look with a smear, I just like the floats. I'd talk to the vet about common parasites. Keep in mind they have symbiotic micro-organisms, so not everything you see is necessarily parasitic. The vet will have greater insight here.

Last thing, if you do get a positive on worms do not use Ivermectin - it's contraindicated in turtles/tortoises. Fenbendazole (anti-wormer) and Flagyl (anti-protozoan) are fine, most good vets know this.