Posted by:
joeysgreen
at Thu Mar 31 05:56:23 2005 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by joeysgreen ]
To add supplements or not, is that the question? While opinions may differ, if healthy, complete mammals are offered as prey then none are necessary. A variety is contained withen the animal, so if the same rats fed on the same food (that is vit/mineral enriched), and are happy and biologically complete then there is little need to worry about your snakes nutrition. Many, many studies have been done on rodent nutrition.
As far as testing products on reptiles; yes, it is necessary to get data on what does and doesn't work, but who should be doing this, the hobbyist? To be beneficial minimally, health exams and blood chemestry's should be done on a regular basis for the snake's (hundreds of snakes) entire life span. You may be heading in the right direction (again opinions may differ), or you could be losing 5 years off your snakes life, without knowing why it died in the end. A 25year lifespan is still good, but how do you know it couldn't have lived 30? The answer is methodical testing of such products.
You are right that economics limiting testing on reptiles, and studies in reptile medicine. This may result in people trying new things as you have, but it is presumptive to say that there is no Reptile Medicine.
As far as what to do, well, the laws say that as long as you're not causing undue hardship for your animals (don't supplement arsenic..lol ) then you can do whatever you please with them. All I, or anyone can do is offer there opinion, mine of which may be clear from the bias in this post. I prefer to go with what has been studied, and shown to work, as opposed to experimenting some unknown tangent where it probably isn't necessary.
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A great debate... - joeysgreen, Thu Mar 31 05:56:23 2005