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I have a 15 month old female savannah monitor she was acting sluggish. She's normally a berserker (she killed a tank mate once). Took her to the vet and got her dewormed, and they told me I needed to put a UVB light on her. Since I just use a regular light bulb on her cage. So they also did blood work to determine if she was calcium defecient. They were pretty sure thats what it was.

Well her test results were in: calcium levels normal, glucose normal, phosphorus normal. Everythng normal all the way across the board.

Just using a regular light bulb. No fancy UVB lights. With that particular lizard, I just feed dubia roaches, crickets and rodents. I gut load the insects I do not sprinkle any calcium or vitamins on the prey items.

Its hot where I live this time of year...that may be why she was sluggish...don't know... at least she is dewormed now.

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>>Its hot where I live this time of year...that may be why she was sluggish...don't know... at least she is dewormed now.

The diet looks great (which is why the blood work came back normal). Maybe she's just maturing and becoming more relaxed.

UVB bulbs huh? That's a good one. Was it hard to fight back the laughter when the vet said that?
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Mike Heinrich,
Mike@amazontreeboa.org
www.amazontreeboa.org

I don't know how to react to vets sometimes. I wanted to see what the blood test would say. This is my understanding of it... they thought the blood test would show the calcium levels were screwed up because no UVB light was present...but that wasn't the case.

I'm not a medical person but I wonder if the whole UVB thing could be put to the test with blood work? If the reptile is using calcium effeciently isn't that proof the light is not needed?

First off, there are many different reasons for CDD(calcium deficiency desease). The lack of UV is one small cause. UVA and UVB is suppose to convert Vitamin D to D-3, and D-3 is what allows calicum to be placed. So without it, calcium cannot be placed. As you mentioned, that is wrong. It appears D vitamins can be converted to D-3 without UVA or UVB(special bulbs). My guess is, it takes heat to convert D to D-3.

We have proved hundreds of times over that UBA or UVB bulbs are NOT needed to raise strong healthy reproductive adults.

The problem is, there are many ways to cause the CDD. And its simple and common sense. The most simple is, a simple lack of calicum in the diet. A monitor can have all the D-3 in needs, but if there is not enough Calcium to place, it will become calcium deficient.

ALso, Stress will inhibit the placement of calcium, so even if there is enough calcium in the diet and plenty of D-3 to place it, stress can STOP the placement of Calcium.

ALso, monitors are prone to stress issues, stress also appears to effect the immune system.

The REAL problem with monitors is, they hide their stress until its too late. FOR INSTANCE, monitors are not SNAKES, snakes stop feeding the moment any stress is presented. Either physical stress or environmental. Monitors on the otherhand, will feed up until a week or so past death, or so it seems. That is, they keep feeding even after organ damage. So the feeding response is "not" a good indicator of stress with monitors.

The Big problem is VETS are not current. They only have old texts to learn from. You see, Vets are not successful monitor keepers, they are vets, so they normally do what you do, google it up and go from there. Which may be of help or it may not be either. Good luck

I'm curious as to how they determine a normal level of calcium. How did they create the standard in the first place. It's not like there is a huge bank of healthy Bosc monitors to take samples from and come up with a average calcium levels to set a standard by... Things that make you go hmmm..

even if youd have samples from every living monitors, the needs cant be quantify it has unlimited variables. the calcium intake depends on everything, heat,water,mouvement,stress,eggs,growth, and combinations of any of these factors.
blood calcium means absolutly nothing, calcium intake is almost always suficient to a monitor feeding on real preys, good husbandry has everything to do with its matabolisation.

rgds

Very good points Steve.

Well you have to watch out for vets because they can be like mechanics in that they will try to charge you for stuff you don't actually need done. They can be a help though if you lizard is sick they can help determine why. I try to use them minimally. Most of my reptiles will never see a vet.

"The Big problem is VETS are not current. They only have old texts to learn from. You see, Vets are not successful monitor keepers, they are vets, so they normally do what you do, google it up and go from there. Which may be of help or it may not be either. Good luck"

Yep most vets keep very few animals themselves maybe a dog or cat thats it. They don't have the same hands on experince as a person who's home is slowly but surely taken over by reptiles. They see the animals that are sick but they don't see trial and error stuff that comes with keeping a monitor lizard day in and day out.