Reptile & Amphibian Forums

OK so there is the possability of overdoing it on calcium and D3, so... For all of us using pellets

1) Are pellets (rep-cal) containing Calcium Carbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate and D-activated Animal Sterol, ok to feed to Beardies being raised in full sunlight? Any restrictions on quantity or frequency?

2) Do additional suppliments need to be added with salad?

3) Do additional suppliments need to be added with crix or other bugs? If bugs are gut loaded using pellets, does it make a difference?

4) How do the rules differ for animals raised indoor with access to UVB equivilant to a good florecent (10uw/cm2), a good MVB (20-50uw/cm2) and no UVB.
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Bennett

www.beardiedragon.com

I'll take a stab at it...

1) Are pellets (rep-cal) containing Calcium Carbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate and D-activated
Animal Sterol, ok to feed to Beardies being raised in full sunlight? Any restrictions on quantity or
frequency?

It depends what you believe in regards to the calcium and dietary d3 controversy. I tend to agree with Derrek that it is self-limiting. Whether the dragon is in sunlight and also consuming some dietary d3, I would imagine it's body would seek out a homeostatic state with respect to d3 levels. I personally would still feed them as often as if they were kept indoors.

2) Do additional suppliments need to be added with salad?

If you dust the live feeders, at most I would add a light dusting of plain calcium(no added d3) to the salads.

3) Do additional suppliments need to be added with crix or other bugs? If bugs are gut loaded using
pellets, does it make a difference?

I'm assuming you are still refering to a BD kept outdoors...In that case I would just dust with a multi-vit once a week. I don't think gutloading with the pellets would be anything to worry about... calcium supp(plain) of course.

4) How do the rules differ for animals raised indoor with access to UVB equivilant to a good
florecent (10uw/cm2), a good MVB (20-50uw/cm2) and no UVB.

Can't help you much with this one, I don't use them.
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Bill DiFabio
Garden State Herpetoculture...website to follow...
Email Me
"The poetry that comes from the squaring off between,
And the circling is worth it.
Finding beauty in the dissonance." - Maynard James Keenan

Ok Bennet here is some data from www.myiguana.com. He did an expt with igs. He gave them 10 uw/cm/cm and for a group of 5 igs found them to have an average 25 hydroxy vitamin D of 169.8 nmol/L and wild igs had blood values ranging from 175 to 275 nmol/L. As you know wild igs get an average of 200 uw/cm/cm over most of the daylight hours. So just 10 uw/cm/cm is sufficient to keep up the vitamin d3 values in the blood. Also to note mbd sets in with values that get down to 50. if the dragon can absorb dietary d3 which would make sense then the uvb from the lights does not go to producing vitamin d3. From the above data I would say that the production of vitamin d3 is self limiting in reptiles. The animals in the wild get at least 20 times the amount of uvb as the study animals but I am guessing that they do not have a significantly different value of blood d3. Ok now onto the food and lighting questions you have asked. RepCal was formulated by very knowledgeable herpotologists, it has a good mixture of vitamins and minerals. So dragons that are fed a lot of rep cal or almost solely repcal should get proper amounts of everything it needs from the food. If the dragon is not absorbing d3 like I supsect it does then a minimum of 10 uw/cm/cm would let the dragon produce sufficient amounts of vitamin d3. The dusting of crickets 1-2 times a week with a calcium with d3 powder for dragons is very tried and true method in my opinion. I do not think that it puts your dragons at risk for hypercalcemia or hypervitamintosis. Again if dragons can not absorb vitamin d3 then 10 uw/cm/cm of uvb will produce suffcient amounts of vitamin d3 to keep your dragon healthy and happy. Calcium seems to be water soluble, I thought it was and just did an expt to see, so it should be filtered out by the kidneys. The kidneys will filter out all water soluble minerals and vitamins. The problem is with fat soluble (and vitamin d3 is fat soluble) vitamins. So I do not think there is that big of a risk in healthy dragons with too much calcium (well if you go crazy there is) or with other water soluble minerals and vitamins. The problems begin with vitamin d3 e k a and a few others someone fill me in here. Ok that is it for my rant hope you enjoy it.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com