I've read someone else has been doing Calcium w/d3 everyday for decades with no problems
MIGHT have been me, so I feel like I need to accept some responsibility and chime in here and say I did it for about a decade with no apparant problems,
BUT-
Only about half the decade was year round d3. The other half I started keeping my lizards outside in the summer where they were only given plain calcium. So they got 5 months of a break from d3 every year.
AND
Although I was surrounded by some excellent veterinarians (my father taught and did research at a vet school, some of his students and collegues are very well known reptile vets today) I did not do things like bloodwork and necropsies were casual- if it wasn't apparant by the naked eye, I didn't worry about it. Not sure if that is because the tools weren't available yet (one of my iguanas was the first ever operated on at that university) or if my father was teaching me what I could do on my own. But it was what it was. There are certainly better tools to evaluate husbandry today. BUT- in the end average lifespan and success rate of reproduction are still pretty good measures of husbandry regardless of the nitty gritty details behind them, and by those standards my animals stood up just fine compared to any out there except those claiming extraordinary lifespans like female veileds who live 8 years or whatever.
AND
Indoors I used very poor lighting most of the time- either vitalites or chroma 50s which the guy at the lighting store had told me were the same thing as vitalites as far as spectrum output. They aren't - they don't put out UVB and vitalites even put out very little. So most of the time indoors I was keeping and breeding relying only on vit d3, not full spectrum lighting in addition.
PLUS-
I don't recommend or do this anymore. Live and learn- it is safer to rely on good lighting available nowadays rather than dietary d3. Although I do use a little more for babies indoors than most here on the forums as well as a little more multivitamin than most here on the forums- it prevents problems like crooked casks, and helps prevent eye infections and tongue problems, etc.
BOTTOM LINE
PLEASE nobody take my recent comments on the forums and misinterpret them as it being a safe and great idea to use D3 at every dusting. I only bring my experience up to argue that there is probably a wider margin of safety using these products vs the absolute minimal use that is sometimes advocated, which I consider not a great idea for the average hobbyiest because I believe leads to some of the problems brought up again and again on the forums.
I don't bring up that experience to encourage people to do what I did- I DO NOT believe what I did is the best thing to do- especially under modern lighting and with today's technologies and advancement in veterinary care.
