Howdy all. I recently adopted a one year old female Ambilobe panther from a friend and have been trying to brush up on my chameleon husbandry after a long hiatus from the hobby.
Currently I'm keeping her outside and my supplementation schedule is using a Calcium w/o D3 at every feeding (4x's/week) and Herptavite w/beta carotene on the 1st & 15th of the month. It's always been my understanding that Beta-Carotene is much preferred over straight vitamin A due to the reduced potential for overdose etc. However, in my meanderings, I came across a website regarding vitamin A synthesis in panther chameleons.
http://www.chameleonden.co.uk/eye_problems.html
...in the last paragraph they state that panthers cannot synthesize vitamin A from beta-carotene, and I'm curious if that has been others experience as well? If so, how do you change your gutloading to account for this?
Thanks for any feedback.
Currently I'm keeping her outside and my supplementation schedule is using a Calcium w/o D3 at every feeding (4x's/week) and Herptavite w/beta carotene on the 1st & 15th of the month. It's always been my understanding that Beta-Carotene is much preferred over straight vitamin A due to the reduced potential for overdose etc. However, in my meanderings, I came across a website regarding vitamin A synthesis in panther chameleons.
http://www.chameleonden.co.uk/eye_problems.html
...in the last paragraph they state that panthers cannot synthesize vitamin A from beta-carotene, and I'm curious if that has been others experience as well? If so, how do you change your gutloading to account for this?
Thanks for any feedback.