Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i've noticed that there is a product of artifical coloring in the reptile market, under nature zone's name. It calls itself color enhancers, and comes in 3 colors, blue green, red orange, and yellow. It says it has complex caritonoids, and anti oxidants? Do You think that it works? Or does it simply sell artificially colorful reptiles. My concern is that, the quality of a truly beautiful dragon will dissappear due to these artificial colorings. A truly beautiful dragon, a naturally beautiful dragon, like that of Dragon's Den, or Sandfire Dragon Ranch, needs to be preserved, a line bred trait, not some simple spray on coloring.

carotenoids are vitamins that have a yellowish-orange color to them and they are fat soluable. I could see them as a "stain" that someone would use to sell a dragon...but would never give premanent color.

In fact it may be toxic at high doses.

lets all write a letter to that company until they pull it from the market.
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon

Great Job, the least we can do is promote awareness, because we truly care. We as consumers and herpetologists should not promote such practices, and with the help of others we can protect what we truly love.

www.naturezonepet.com/ images/icons/lc-flyer.jpg, check it out

so i know alot about this because i am an analytical biochemist, and one of the things i do is measure fat soluable vitamins in human serum.

carotinoids (lycopene, aplha-carotene, beta-carotene) are not even soluable in water. And I bet that the base of the so called "color-spray" is water. So they probably use some harsh solvent such as hexane to dissolve it first and then dilute it in water. i wouldn't want that on my pets.

Another thing is that carotenoids are light sensitive. So if they were to be applied topically (on the skin/scales) the UV light would destroy the compound in an hour or so providing absolutly no nutritional value.

I bet the product was developed by someone who nearly flucked out of college....or just borderline retarded.
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a free range dragon is a happy dragon

Sorry the link doesnt work, try naturezonepet.com

Doesn't sound like a very useful protuct to me. It would be simpler to just let your dragon bath in luke warm water that you had boiled beets in. That will get you some nice blood reds really quick LOL. The only 'value' and this assumes that the product is actualy safe to use on animals, is you can have a fake colored dragon to show off to friends...or just to get a different look for awhile without having to pay to buy a high end colored dragon. Pretty much would be like dying your dog's hair hot pink. Completely and utterly useless product except for some people who find that sort of thing appealing. I am sure th ey have their reasons..I just don't understand it, not picking on anybody of course, nor do I mean to offend.
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PHLdyPayne