Recent veterinary advice ?

adambentz

New Member
Hey all,

I recently took my 3 and a half month old panther to a very good exotic animal vet specializing in avian and reptile care. His eye was bothering him and I was concerned of respiratory issues. He had none and I was sent home with saline eye drops. Thank you again to those of you who responded so quickly to my ''Respiratory Issue ?'' thread.

My Vet is the past president of the Pacific Northwest association of avian and and exotic veterinarians, has contributed 2 chapters to the British small animal veterans association of exotic pets, fifth edition. She advises and has assisted many exotic rescue organizations including the Pacific North West Herpetological Society and has spoken at the international conference on exotics.

She owns 8 reptiles none of wich are Chameleons. Many of her staff own reptiles as well, one of them has 20 in her home. Again none of them Chameleons. She sees quite a phew of chameleons on a regular basis and of course many other types of reptiles.

my question is about gut loading and vitamin dusting. She very specifically told me and is advising all her clients I would assume to stop dusting all together, and to only use gut loading as a source of calcium. That reptiles can not properly proces the dust and it must come from inside the feeders gut. That she is seeing adult chameleons coming in with Tremors, Chameleons that have been provided with calcium dusting powder all there lives. Not only this but I was told that only one brand of gut load has been proven to provide appropriate levels of Calcium to feeders. This is T Rex Calcium Plus Food For Crickets. She told me a study was done by leading experts to test the effects of calcium fortified dry commercial products on the calcium content of both cricket nymphs and adults.

I asked if I could read the study and she copied it for me, I have read it twice. The study is very technical so I dont fully understand it. However I do understand that the recommendation was that hobbits and institutions should either make your own gut load diets or use T REx Calcium Plus for calcium intake for all reptiles to achieve proper calcium levels. Many of the products out there claim to have sufficient calcium for gut loading, but this study VERY MUCH says otherwise. The study was published in the Journal of herpetological medicine and surgery volume 15.

I am a tiny bit skeptical as it seems many people with Chameleons seem to use dusting powders and I don't want to just stop 100 percent without being sure I am making the rite decision. I Know this is a difficult subject with many options and what works for one doesn't alway work for another.

Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated!

Adam
 
I have heard of this thrown around from time to time, however ive never read the article. I would love to read it. Could you send me a PM?
 
Interesting advice considering it was an eye problem he was brought in with...

No idea about her advice with the t-rex product.

I used a product once to raise baby chameleons without dusting of any kind, but it was for humans and I don't want to recommend it because it probably has too much of something or other for the long run (I did this in the late 90s when not as much was known (at least by me) about too much of certain vitamins). I'm just throwing this out there to say in theory it could happen as I've done something similar. Not what I have chosen to do since though.
 
Yes I'll send it too you no prob. I don't have a scanner so I might not have time to do it until Thur but I'll see if I can't do it sooner.

And to the second response than you for the link to your blog really appreciate that!
 
That is very interesting. I would like to see a copy as well, so I am sure that many others would like to see it. If you could post a link to it so that we could all take a look I am sure that it would be appreciated. If not, if you wouldn't mind PMing me as well I would be grateful. Thank you.
 
Looks like it worked.

Any thoughts or ideas from those experts out there who have owned and bread Panther Chameleons Would be greatly appreciated!!
 
That worked, thank you. This study does indeed show that the T-Rex diet is the best gut load for fortifying the bugs with calcium, but it does not mention anything on whether or not chameleons are able to absorb the calcium from the powder. Until I see a study which proves that they can not absorb it, I would continue to dust. If you are using a high calcium gut load, like the T-Rex, then you most likely do not need to dust very often, but I would be wary about cutting it out completely. It has been my experience that chameleons that are fed bugs with the dusting do better than those that do not receive the dusting. I have not done a controlled study on the matter, so perhaps I should with my next clutch.
 
Thank you,

That's exactly what I was thinking. Any advice on how frequently I should dust if I'm using T Rex Calcium plus for guy loading?
 
IMHO the insects are always out of balance so it's important to provide enough calcium make up for that even though it's an adult..
 
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