GCash
Avid Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by GCash
While we're on this subject, what are your guys thoughts on pregnancy induced edemas? Could it be a sign that they do need to supply a higher level of these vitamins to their young, to an extent that the mother's body(at least in montanes) can barely handle the elevated levels themselves? I have a werneri female that I know when she is gravid by the collar she gets and as soon as she gives birth it goes straight back to normal.
(pamnsam94)
Maybe pregnancy induced edemas should be a subject for another thread, but I'll briefly comment. I've wondered about them too, but more specifically, I wonder why I really haven't experienced them with my gravid females while so many other keepers do.
Since vitamin A is used by or transferred to the developing eggs, is it possible that, for those keepers who use beyond a certain amount of D3 in powdered form, the D3 causes organ malfunction, albeit slight, which then causes the edemas?
Once eggs are laid, the female wouldn't need as much preformed A, so I think more would remain in her system as opposed to going to the developing eggs. Under that scenario, it seems that the greater concentration of preformed A that the female should have might counteract the harmful effects of elevated D3. In other words, the preformed A to D3 imbalance would be corrected once the eggs were laid and the edemas would disappear as long as no permanent organ damage occurred.
Since I'm extremely cautious of using D3 in powdered form, preferring instead for my chameleons to manufacture their own, perhaps that's why my gravid females very, very rarely have ever had an edema. Just wondering. So much for my "brief" comment.
Perry
Excellent food for thought and educational, but I was originally thinking more along the lines of naturally converted vitamins. Since insects have little preformed vit. A, and in nature there's no one supplementing it, would the mother's physiological processes ramp up the conversion of carotenoids to increase the supply? For D3 the mother would just have to bask longer which is a common behavior we see already, but what is the catalyst for a chameleon's own conversion of vit. A from carotenoids? Could they produce more of this catalyst when they are gearing up to yolk a clutch? What regulates how much proformed A gets converted at any given time and circumstance? I've read in humans the major factors in bioconversion are food matrices, preparation and fat. Could it be that we see a benefit to using a preformed supplement because we aren't hitting a proper fat to beta-carotene ratio or something like that? Whatever the case and source, could the edemas during pregnancy be individualistic based on the varying factors and the female's chemistry just being out of whack during the process? I've experienced two human pregnancies and have seen how haywire things can get, including myself, and I wasn't even the one that was pregnant!
Originally Posted by GCash
While we're on this subject, what are your guys thoughts on pregnancy induced edemas? Could it be a sign that they do need to supply a higher level of these vitamins to their young, to an extent that the mother's body(at least in montanes) can barely handle the elevated levels themselves? I have a werneri female that I know when she is gravid by the collar she gets and as soon as she gives birth it goes straight back to normal.
(pamnsam94)
Maybe pregnancy induced edemas should be a subject for another thread, but I'll briefly comment. I've wondered about them too, but more specifically, I wonder why I really haven't experienced them with my gravid females while so many other keepers do.
Since vitamin A is used by or transferred to the developing eggs, is it possible that, for those keepers who use beyond a certain amount of D3 in powdered form, the D3 causes organ malfunction, albeit slight, which then causes the edemas?
Once eggs are laid, the female wouldn't need as much preformed A, so I think more would remain in her system as opposed to going to the developing eggs. Under that scenario, it seems that the greater concentration of preformed A that the female should have might counteract the harmful effects of elevated D3. In other words, the preformed A to D3 imbalance would be corrected once the eggs were laid and the edemas would disappear as long as no permanent organ damage occurred.
Since I'm extremely cautious of using D3 in powdered form, preferring instead for my chameleons to manufacture their own, perhaps that's why my gravid females very, very rarely have ever had an edema. Just wondering. So much for my "brief" comment.
Perry
Excellent food for thought and educational, but I was originally thinking more along the lines of naturally converted vitamins. Since insects have little preformed vit. A, and in nature there's no one supplementing it, would the mother's physiological processes ramp up the conversion of carotenoids to increase the supply? For D3 the mother would just have to bask longer which is a common behavior we see already, but what is the catalyst for a chameleon's own conversion of vit. A from carotenoids? Could they produce more of this catalyst when they are gearing up to yolk a clutch? What regulates how much proformed A gets converted at any given time and circumstance? I've read in humans the major factors in bioconversion are food matrices, preparation and fat. Could it be that we see a benefit to using a preformed supplement because we aren't hitting a proper fat to beta-carotene ratio or something like that? Whatever the case and source, could the edemas during pregnancy be individualistic based on the varying factors and the female's chemistry just being out of whack during the process? I've experienced two human pregnancies and have seen how haywire things can get, including myself, and I wasn't even the one that was pregnant!
