# Additional Vitamins/supplements?



## hppel (Dec 2, 2012)

Hey guys, getting a Argentine B&W soon, unfortunately, my mom has a phobia of whole food being eaten... i.e frozen mice. So I'm going to feed him/her a diet of raw lean ground turkey, pretty much the normal diet, just minus the feeders.. I'm going to be dusting the Turkey with Repti calcium without D3 every day except Tuesday and thursday, and on those days I will be feeding him/her ground turkey mixed with cod liver oil, 1 tbsp to the pound. Of course, i will still be feeding Veggies and the occasional minced beef heart, fish, etc.. But since there wont be rodents in its diet, are there any other vitamin supplements that I need? Thanks!


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## Roadkill (Dec 2, 2012)

If you are going to be using a ground meat diet exclusively, then you absolutely MUST supplement with every meal, and a lot more than a "dusting". What you are presenting is a recipe for nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism.


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## james.w (Dec 2, 2012)

Look into the whole ground animals from hare-today.com. You can get ground meat with the bones, organs, and fur included which would be a complete meal.


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## hppel (Dec 2, 2012)

Roadkill said:


> If you are going to be using a ground meat diet exclusively, then you absolutely MUST supplement with every meal, and a lot more than a "dusting". What you are presenting is a recipe for nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism.



Do you mean the calcium dust, or the cod liver oil in every meal? And any other vitamins that I need to supplement?


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## jondancer (Dec 2, 2012)

When your mom is working goot the pet shop and get some mice And feed him a few times a week she will ever know.


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## Roadkill (Dec 2, 2012)

Primarily calcium. Meat is calcium poor, but it is also going to be poor in other essential nutrients. Ground meat is going to be primarily protein, and for a healthy animal you need all nutrients and vitamins. With ground meat you need to build it up to a healthy diet. Personally, I think 1tbsp/lb of meat is overkill. There's a good chance at that rate that you could run into problems. I doubt a tegu would need any more vitamin D3 than what would be present in 1cc of cod liver oil per day.


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## hppel (Dec 3, 2012)

Roadkill said:


> Primarily calcium. Meat is calcium poor, but it is also going to be poor in other essential nutrients. Ground meat is going to be primarily protein, and for a healthy animal you need all nutrients and vitamins. With ground meat you need to build it up to a healthy diet. Personally, I think 1tbsp/lb of meat is overkill. There's a good chance at that rate that you could run into problems. I doubt a tegu would need any more vitamin D3 than what would be present in 1cc of cod liver oil per day.



I'm not going to be feeding him/her the Cod liver oil everyday, twice a week I will feed the tbsp/lb mixture of Turkey, do you still think that I need to cut back? And I will add more Calcium, should I add any vitamins such as reptivite or other vitamin supplements? If so, how often? Thanks for your help so far!



jondancer said:


> When your mom is working goot the pet shop and get some mice And feed him a few times a week she will ever know.



Unfortunately, my mom gets home before I do


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## frost (Dec 3, 2012)

if your mom is persistent is not letting you properly feed your animal then maybe you should tell her of the benefits of feeding whole. prey. if your enclosure is not in the same room as your mother then she wouldent have to see it. If you were to feed whole prey to your tegu would thank you for it. trying to get around not feeding whole prey is going to be vary costly and time consuming.


and this is my 1000 post =D


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## tommylee22 (Dec 3, 2012)

I don't give any supplements and Biggin is growing like a weed. I do feed whole ground animal thou. I think if you do that you will get all the calcium and other vitamins you need.


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## hppel (Dec 3, 2012)

frost said:


> if your mom is persistent is not letting you properly feed your animal then maybe you should tell her of the benefits of feeding whole. prey. if your enclosure is not in the same room as your mother then she wouldent have to see it. If you were to feed whole prey to your tegu would thank you for it. trying to get around not feeding whole prey is going to be vary costly and time consuming.
> 
> 
> and this is my 1000 post =D





Grats on 1000th post, lol. Yea, feeding whole prey is definitely easier... If you don't mind me asking, what is your feeding schedule like WITH whole prey?


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## frost (Dec 3, 2012)

me? i feed whole prey every other day which is usually a f/t chick. them on the off days i feed my ground turkey and other random things like bugs,chicken, ect.


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