WelshOneEmma
New Member
I started a thread a while back to make sure that we were supplementing our male veiled correctly. We have since been using calcium dust daily, and twice a month using nutrobal, which has vitamins and D3. I emailed the breeder yesterday with an update on him, and mentioned he was growing very fast, and was told I have my supplementing all wrong! He said (and i quote)
"In my experience you can’t slow a Yemen’s rate of growth (unless you starve them or turn down their heat which will kill them which I don’t recommend) so correct supplementation is crucial.
Yemens will grow at that speed regardless.
MBD is not caused by growing too fast – it is caused by lack of ‘available’ dietary calcium. For them to have ‘available’ calcium they need calcium and vitamin D3 at each feed!!! so your twice a month Nutrobal is a severe underdose – I know people who have only used Nutrobal twice a week and have had calcium deficiency problems due to lack of D3.
I had expected you to be following the advice in my care-sheet in which I advise you to use Repton (or Nutrobal) every day – it states that for a reason.
Although they manufacture some D3 themselves under the UVB they require a significant amount of oral D3 to make sure they have enough to utilise all that calcium you are giving him.
Without D3 you can feed him kilogrammes of calcium but he won’t be able to utilise more than a small fraction of it.
The combination calcium/D3 formulations have been developed such that there is a vast excess of calcium in them compared to the amount of D3, so you can’t overdose them because there is always a surplus of calcium to balance up the D3. It therefore does not make sense to avoid using them because they might cause MBD – they don’t!
Available calcium deficiency will present gradually as it is a cumulative effect - first signs are muscular tremors, weakness and eventually an inability to grasp the branch resulting in them toppling off (lack of available calcium for muscle function).
Soft deformed bones develop next (MBD) and their legs can break under the weight of their own body – this is commonly the fate of Iguanas fed on fruit with little or no calcium and D3 supplementation.
You may get away with your current supplementing regime but I would hate to have to say ‘I warned you’ a few months later on.
Your enclosure should be large enough so I would see how you feel when he nears adult size"
So, what supplementation schedule should i be using?
"In my experience you can’t slow a Yemen’s rate of growth (unless you starve them or turn down their heat which will kill them which I don’t recommend) so correct supplementation is crucial.
Yemens will grow at that speed regardless.
MBD is not caused by growing too fast – it is caused by lack of ‘available’ dietary calcium. For them to have ‘available’ calcium they need calcium and vitamin D3 at each feed!!! so your twice a month Nutrobal is a severe underdose – I know people who have only used Nutrobal twice a week and have had calcium deficiency problems due to lack of D3.
I had expected you to be following the advice in my care-sheet in which I advise you to use Repton (or Nutrobal) every day – it states that for a reason.
Although they manufacture some D3 themselves under the UVB they require a significant amount of oral D3 to make sure they have enough to utilise all that calcium you are giving him.
Without D3 you can feed him kilogrammes of calcium but he won’t be able to utilise more than a small fraction of it.
The combination calcium/D3 formulations have been developed such that there is a vast excess of calcium in them compared to the amount of D3, so you can’t overdose them because there is always a surplus of calcium to balance up the D3. It therefore does not make sense to avoid using them because they might cause MBD – they don’t!
Available calcium deficiency will present gradually as it is a cumulative effect - first signs are muscular tremors, weakness and eventually an inability to grasp the branch resulting in them toppling off (lack of available calcium for muscle function).
Soft deformed bones develop next (MBD) and their legs can break under the weight of their own body – this is commonly the fate of Iguanas fed on fruit with little or no calcium and D3 supplementation.
You may get away with your current supplementing regime but I would hate to have to say ‘I warned you’ a few months later on.
Your enclosure should be large enough so I would see how you feel when he nears adult size"
So, what supplementation schedule should i be using?