glitter in snake poo

[thomasssss]

.

There is nothing within the digestive system of snakes that would produce shiny bit of defecation.

beg to differ blue as i mentioned earlier some of my snakes have passed a green sugary looking substance with their urate ( as i said i was told by snake ranch and a number of member on here that it was bile ), this green sugary substance is reflective , not to the point it shows your reflection but it does sparkle in the light , which is why i first thought that was what the op had experienced and well they haven't actually ruled it out yet as they haven't said if it was that green stuff or not

 

[Bluetongue1]

The OP described it as tiny bits of shiny stuff and said it was in their poo. Also the OP did not respond to the suggestion of it being green. I may have been premature in my assessment but it is based on what bile does. For it to be present separately would indicate it has been released without the snake having eaten. Under usual circumstances it is released in response to food in the gut, and the mixing of these salts with that food is what gives faeces its brown to greenish brown colour.

I am intrigued by just what you did observe Thomasssss. Was it an amorphous semi-liquid lump which had a generally reflective surface? Or did it consist of discrete surfaces, each with a fixed shape and size that produced more or les reflection, depending on the angle from which it was viewed?

Blue

 

[thomasssss]

The OP described it as tiny bits of shiny stuff and said it was in their poo. Also the OP did not respond to the suggestion of it being green. I may have been premature in my assessment but it is based on what bile does. For it to be present separately would indicate it has been released without the snake having eaten. Under usual circumstances it is released in response to food in the gut, and the mixing of these salts with that food is what gives faeces its brown to greenish brown colour.

I am intrigued by just what you did observe Thomasssss. Was it an amorphous semi-liquid lump which had a generally reflective surface? Or did it consist of discrete surfaces, each with a fixed shape and size that produced more or les reflection, depending on the angle from which it was viewed?

Blue

im a little confused myself blue , if you look below my first post on the previous page , you will see the op has just said " yea im a bit worried ive noticed no change in attitude ......." so hard to tell if there replying to me saying about the bile , or another member about vermiculite thats why the quote function is so helpful

as for what ive experienced with the bile myself , just think of a plain old urate along with it was this green sugar looking substance that when in the light had a sparkle it wasn't one reflective surface but many as i said think of sugar thats what each tiny piece of bile looked like it wasn't in the urate but attached to it

 

[Pythoninfinite]

Urates in snakes is CRYSTALLINE uric acid, and depending on the time those crystals have had to develop in the lower tract, the crystals can grow until they are a bit gritty and the facets on those crystals can reflect light. Most wouldn't notice, but poo obsessives will pick it up immediately and begin worrying. It's not uncommon, and nothing to worry about.

Jamie

 

[Justdragons]

I remember a thread on here where some peoples snakes were passing away and they couldnt understand why. An autopsy was done and it revealed 'glitter' in the stomach of the snake. it turned out that the rats they had been feeding had been kept in cages with cheap mesh that the rats had been eating and the build up of metal particles in the stomach had passed on to the snake and in turn killed the snake. Im in no way saying that this is what it is but its worth trying a new source of food and changing a substrate? GL

JD

- - - Updated - - -

recently someone in aps had a snake die

autopsy by a member here [maybe baden?]
showed that it had eaten rats that had been chewing on wire

not saying thats what it is
but could be a possibility

lol sorry longqi, i only read page one and then posted.. great minds ay haha.

 

[slim6y]

Urates in snakes is CRYSTALLINE uric acid, and depending on the time those crystals have had to develop in the lower tract, the crystals can grow until they are a bit gritty and the facets on those crystals can reflect light. Most wouldn't notice, but poo obsessives will pick it up immediately and begin worrying. It's not uncommon, and nothing to worry about.

Jamie

Sounds reasonable... However, another suggestion could be to stop feeding your snake baby unicorns...

But, thinking about it, the OP didn't suggest multi coloured poo, just crystals (glitter) and as uric acid can make fairly tiny crystals, enough to reflect a bit of light in a shimmer, this seems like a more possible answer.

 

[Jande]

My two largest Childrens have been doing the same thing recently. The white part of the poo dries out and it looks slightly shimmery. Almost like raw sugar once fully dried out. The above post from Jamie is probably what I've noticed. I'm not 'poo obsessive' but it only happens every 3rd or 4th feed, and it's very gritty and easily noticed when it occurs. I use Breeder's Choice litter and white LED lights so it tends to stick out like a sore thumb. I don't think it's a bad thing that we pay attention to the natural changes our snakes are going through. As Jamie also mentioned, I don't think it's anything to worry about and my snakes seem perfectly healthy otherwise.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

Yep, the other explanations such as heavy-metal poisoning from zinc contaminated rats are likely to produce illness or other changes in behaviour prior to death. A rat eats loose zinc on the mesh of its enclosure and may be fed off before suffering the effects itself, but the end-user, the snake, may have it in their gut for some time. I doubt that zinc would be bright & shiny after the process anyway, definitely not glittery, if my school experiment memories of using zinc & HCl to produce hydrogen hold true.

Jamie

 

[Tristan]

its not a diamond Python by any chance?

 

[Justdragons]

Yep, the other explanations such as heavy-metal poisoning from zinc contaminated rats are likely to produce illness or other changes in behaviour prior to death. A rat eats loose zinc on the mesh of its enclosure and may be fed off before suffering the effects itself, but the end-user, the snake, may have it in their gut for some time. I doubt that zinc would be bright & shiny after the process anyway, definitely not glittery, if my school experiment memories of using zinc & HCl to produce hydrogen hold true.

Jamie

Is that where you use the test tube and a match and it would pop? if it was that was great fun... sorry a little off topic lol