I occasionally provide calcium supplementation for females post oviposition, but I prefer to provide a wide variety of prey items such as rabbits, rats, mice, fish, chicken, quail and frogs, working with Drymarchon spp. allows for such, as they will literally devour anything that will fit in their mouths. Keep in mind, when supplementing a diet with vitamins and minerals, hypervitaminosis is hazardous and many fat soluble vitamins have the potential to reach toxic levels, if not administered carefully. Also, D3 is actually a hormone, not a vitamin, and too much can be hazardous to your animal’s health. Straight calcium carbonate, without added D3, is quite safe, though a good diet of vertebrates generally provides sufficient calcium. Should you decide to use a vitamin supplement, read the label and try to use such which uses beta-carotene, rather than vitamin A, which is a fat soluble vitamin and can prove harmful in high dosages, as can vitamins D, E and K…

Best regards,

Jeff



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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

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• Vitamin Supplement - Black_Wolf, Wed Jul 19 09:45:25 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - FunkyRes, Wed Jul 19 10:41:55 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - Black_Wolf, Thu Jul 20 08:25:57 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - FunkyRes, Thu Jul 20 09:41:42 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - Paul Hollander, Fri Jul 21 09:26:59 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - epidemic, Fri Jul 21 11:20:15 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - FunkyRes, Fri Jul 21 16:33:47 2006
• Variety Diet - FunkyRes, Fri Jul 21 16:44:33 2006
• RE: Vitamin Supplement - epidemic, Thu Jul 20 09:51:41 2006
• Reason I asked... - Black_Wolf, Sun Jul 23 22:13:23 2006
• RE: Reason I asked... - epidemic, Tue Jul 25 09:20:28 2006