Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Sorry I am still a bit confused on this subject...

If anyone could tell me what brands to use and how often to use them and how and where to use them, I would be very greatful...

I hear a lot of conflicting things on this subject

If you want to make supplementing your leo as easy as it can get, pick up a bottle of t-rex Leopard gecko dust. It is formulated to use at every feeding if you want without worry. If you feed crix, you just lightly dust at every feeding. If you feed mealworms, you just leave about an 1/8" layer on the bottom of your feeding dish. This supplement covers all bases and no other supp. is needed.
good luck
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me

Great, the petco sells it near me, have to find a reptile store though, don't like dealing with butchers.

Thanks for your help, didn't want to waste money/space on buying 3 different things lol

no problem, you can purchase online at www.lllreptile.com. They have good prices and you can even get it in bulk.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me

Good question. From one source I read, the author states that you should have both plain calcium powder (w/out D3) and calcium with D3 and alternate. The reason given for this is the potential for D3 overdose. This source also stated that you should use herp. vitamin powder withOUT vitamin A, but with beta-caratine, again stating the possibility of overdose of vit. A. Add to that confusion the conflicting statements from every source I've seen regarding how often to dose your crickets. What do you all do?

Whether to use supplements containing Vitamin A and Vitamin D in reptiles remains a subject of debate among veterinarians, simply because there is not enough conclusive data to prove or disprove their theories. Both VitA and VitD are fat soluable, which means that when taken in large quantities it can build up in the body's fat cells and cause toxicity. The question is, how much does it take to be toxic? Personally, I have never heard of a case of hypervitaminosis in Leopard Geckos.

Vitamin D serves as a catalyst for absorption of calcium into the bloodstream more efficiently. That is why you will find milk in the supermarkets that is VitD fortified. This could be very beneficial to nocturnal reptiles since they do not bask in the sun to assimilate VitD from natural sunlight like other reptiles do. But how do we know where the source of it would be for Leopard Geckos in the wild? Heck, we can't even agree on what their natural habitat and substrate is, much less what the source of their supplements are!

In regard to VitA, we know that it serves a purpose for it's antioxidant characteristics and benefits to vision in humans, but we also know it can build up to toxic levels to the point that it affects the liver's function. Again, we just do not understand it's role in the nutritional needs of reptiles.

The only real input I have to this is, that I have used calcium with Vitamin D on my Leos for 10 years, and they have not suffered any ill effects from it.
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Marcia McGuiness
Golden Gate Geckos
www.goldengategeckos.com

I Just want to add a little...Although there is not much scientific data on the subject of toxicity in reptiles with the mentioned vits., there is a mountain of anecdotal evidence from breeders and keeps such as you and I. The evidence suggests that all this fear of toxicity should be a dead issue by now. I have had a few conversations with Sue Donaghue(herpnutrition.com) on this very subject...what I got from the conversations was that with the supplements being available to hobbyists, it would be virtually impossibe to induce a toxic effect from these vits. Allow me to break it down for my fellow forum members. Miner-all I contains about 4000 I.U. of d3 per kilo of product...this is on the low end for supplements. This amount is safe for daily liberal usage(t-rex dust contains the same amount. Rep-cal contains 400,000 I.U. per kilo...this is 100 x the amount of miner-all and t-rex dust, yet it still seems to be a safe amount. I know many breeders that have used rep-cal for years without any ill effect. So what is the amount that might cause a toxic effect in reptiles? I don't know, but I can tell you it is not available in the commercial powdered supps. for herps. The only supp. on the market that MAY cause toxicity if used not as directed is the liquid solar or moon drops. As for how do Leos obtain d3 in the wild...I have a couple ideas as to possibilities. They could recieve uv radiation in the dawn or dusk hours. I would imagine that they don't always wait until it is pitch dark out to forage. Maybe the also have a way to utilize the d2 found in plants that there insect prey consume...that might be a stretch,but who knows.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me