Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone do this? If so--what do you use and how do you do it? What is the importance of it?

I don't do it--but am thinking about starting...
Thanks!
Charlotte

Hi Charlotte – I used a powdered supplement or bird vitamins on an irregular basis way back in the ‘70’s when I was using frozen food. When I started to raise my own food and feed fresh, I stopped the practice. I switched back to frozen food a couple of years ago, so I’m beginning to look into using supplementation again.

Since I really don’t know the nutritional value of the frozen food I get from various sources, it would seem to be a good idea to hedge my bets and sprinkle some vitamins on the food from time to time. I know it appears that many herps can live a long life eating solely frozen-thawed food, but I keep thinking this can’t be an ideal situation. We know that the foodstuffs WE eat decline in nutritional value over time after freezing (even, I guess, BY freezing). One problem is – who will ever do feeding trials with controls? So it has to be a by guess and by golly type of thing.

Maybe Rob Carmichael will chime in here since he has said he uses supplements. When I first heard him discuss the practice here, I thought it might be unnecessary. But I think I’m coming around to his point of view on this.

-Joan

Yes, we use vitamin supplementation regularly but conservatively for our rodent/bird eating snakes in our collection (not to mention all of the rest of our herps including various lizards, turtles, crocs, venomous herps, etc.). My 35 year old ball python and 25 year old burm, not to mention many other long term captive herps, have been getting vitamin supplementation throughout their life and many of my other long term animals receive vitamins in their diet. But, too much of a good thing can be very harmful; vitamins included. We go with a fairly conservative approach (and as Joan mentioned, there really isn't any scientific data to help us understand the exact vitamin fecundity due to freezing of prey items). For example, our hatchling boas/pythons that feed on whole animal prey get the rumps of their prey dusted on one prey item weekly (this consists of a 50/50 mix of RepCal and Herptivite or we alternate with Minerall). I have a baby eastern diamondback that has tripled its growth in only three months due to a quality diet mixed with regular vitamin supplementation. As these animals reach maturity we cut back to once every 2-4 weeks (in the case of burms, we cut back to once monthly due to their slow metabolisms). The larger the snake, the larger the "pinch" of vitamin powder that goes on to teh moistened rump of the prey animal. I will also shove a capsule of Vitamin C into a prey animal every now and then. If you use vitamins routinely but sparingly you'll be erring on the safe side...a little vitamin supplementation is better than none at all. I would rather err on giving too little than too much when it comes to vitamins as a whole animal diet is pretty "rich" in everything a snake needs (even with the freezing process degrading some of the vitamin efficacy).

Now, if you are feeding live prey or freshly killed prey that has been raised on quality diets, I feel that supplementation is unnecessary.

My animals are active, outwardly healthy, vigorous, robust and we have experienced few health related problems (but there are MANY factors to longevity in reptiles; diet and supplementation is just one of many components....I'll throw in "truly blessed" as another component for my success).

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
City of Lake Forest Parks & Recreation (IL)

Thanks for all the info!

I have never supplemented my snakes food--but was considering to do so--no pariticular reason other than making sure they get everything nutrionally that they possibly can.
I have never done this before and have never had a problem--it was just a thought.
I have a hearty supply of RepCal Calcium and Herptivite that I was considering dusting with about every other feeding.