Supplements?

[Brian A]

I used to dust his roaches and other invertebrates, but I've been informed that is he eats a significant amount of live mammal prey that the innards provide the necessary vitamins and the bones provide the necessary calcium. I like to just have a bin in his cage with some roaches that he can eat from at his leisure. The dusting tends to come off as a result. Should I be insuring that his invertebrates are fully dusted when he eats them. They are still gut loaded with good food.

 

[Walter1]

As they grow, dust everything. Roaches and crickets will groom the powder off in time, so dust and feed immediately. Once adult you can cut back on the dusting some.

 

[dpjm]

Always dust insects, they are very deficient in calcium as they have a chitinous exoskeleton. Even if you feed whole vertebrate prey as well, still dust you insects with calcium. Repti-Calcium from Zoo Med is great.

 

[Hudson Valley]

Should the calcium supplement be without D3? If so, why? Thank you in advance for your reply.

 

[dpjm]

Yes, get the calcium with no D3. With good UVB lamps your tegu can produce exactly how much D3 it needs. Adding extra on top of that in the diet could cause an overdose of D3. Supplementing D3 is a dangerous guessing game. No one knows how much is the right amount unless you are doing blood tests to monitor your tegus D3 levels. It's easy to give too much or not enough without knowing.

With the calcium supplement that has D3 added, they add so little D3 to it that there is no way you can provide them with enough supplemental D3 without giving them way too much calcium. This type of product is garbage in my opinion. If you need to supplement D3 it is better to add your own D3 from ground D3 tablets to plain calcium, this way you can control the ratio of calcium to D3 and provide both in the correct amounts. Again though, if you want to do this you are playing with fire unless you somehow know how much D3 your tegu needs.

 

[Walter1]

Use liberally!!!

 

[Hudson Valley]

Yes, get the calcium with no D3. With good UVB lamps your tegu can produce exactly how much D3 it needs. Adding extra on top of that in the diet could cause an overdose of D3. Supplementing D3 is a dangerous guessing game. No one knows how much is the right amount unless you are doing blood tests to monitor your tegus D3 levels. It's easy to give too much or not enough without knowing.

With the calcium supplement that has D3 added, they add so little D3 to it that there is no way you can provide them with enough supplemental D3 without giving them way too much calcium. This type of product is garbage in my opinion. If you need to supplement D3 it is better to add your own D3 from ground D3 tablets to plain calcium, this way you can control the ratio of calcium to D3 and provide both in the correct amounts. Again though, if you want to do this you are playing with fire unless you somehow know how much D3 your tegu needs.

Thank you for this explanation. What you shared makes good sense. The tegus and I thank you.

 

[Hudson Valley]

Use liberally!!!

Will do!

 

[Walter1]

Thank you for this explanation. What you shared makes good sense. The tegus and I thank you.

Spjm nails it.