Vitamin A supplement dosage

[TreelionsUK]

Hi all,i have read all the posts regarding this matter and my vit a arrived today
this is it http://www.bodykind.com/productdetails/CatIDx174/ProdIDx1901/vitasorb-a-2500iu-15-1x.htm
Click on the ingredients tab to see whats in it im sure its ok

i have been having problems with 3 month old panthers with eye problems and belive that the vitamin A will help with these problems...but how would you go about giving Vit A to animals this small???

What do you guys using it do??

also is the strengh of the product i have got very high?? what am i aiming for?

Many thanks

 

[dodolah]

this certainly will bring controversies (again) between the members.

I do not practice giving Retinol supplementation for baby chameleons.
Simply because i am afraid that I cannot give a proper dosing. Not that i can be sure to give proper dosing of retinol for adult/ juvie chameleon anyway.
But, my humble logic is that babies will probably be at more risk of vit A poisoning than adults (this is purely my speculation. I admit I could be dead wrong about this. It could be that the risk is about the same in adult. Who knows??!)

(We are still unsure about the necessity of this particular supplement in chameleons. as far as I know, the jury is still out there regarding this).

I do admit that i gave retinol for my 12 mo Veiled. as often as once a month, or as little as once every 3 months or so. What I did is I just brush a tiny drop of the solution to a hornworm or silkworm and let my veiled eat it right away.
I always make sure that he's hungry enough so that he will immediately zap the worm.

As far as my panther goes, I never fed him retinol.

I do believe claims by people who successfully raised chameleons without preformed vit A supplements.
As well as claims made by people who successfully raised chameleons without UVB and relying solely on D3 supplementation (i knew one person who did this -but off course, he is a professor at a herpetology department in University that studies the effect. So, he has the knowledge and tools to measure the proper dosing -I do not recommend hobbyists to do this)

As far as type of vit A, I used the Retinyl Palmitate.
I'm sorry I am a bit tired as I am typing this at 3 am.
I will have to take a raincheck tomorrow to check your vit A ingredients.

But, I am sure there are many other knowledgeable people from this forums who can chime in to approve or disapprove of my point.
Take their advise as well and weigh in the decision whether your chameleon really need this supplementation regime.
I guess my point is you should be sure that the symptoms your chameleon displaying is truly because of hypovitaminosis A.

Closing eyes is an overly generalized symptom which simply means there is something wrong.
It could mean many things from a simple irritant (dust), hypovitaminosis A, or even as simply as stress factor from the environment.

Also, eye problems can also mean different things from infection to lethal UVB exposure.

Sorry if my post makes you confused even more

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy Luke,

Without more details it's pretty hard to conclude whether or not dosing with vitamin A will be a benefit. With that being said, here are a few notes regarding vitamin A that you may have already read.

Here's an earlier post of mine within another keeper's thread about vitamin A: https://www.chameleonforums.com/food-thought-12472/#post100844

The dosing from that post:

From the dosing chart for chameleons:
"Recommended treatment dose: 2000 IU/30g body weight by mouth every 7d x 2 doses."
"Dusts containing 86 IU retinyl ester / g dry matter, followed by 60IU/g dry matter."

"Recommended dietary levels: Dusts providing up to 60 IU/g dry matter or 5-9 IU/g cricket dry matter."

Your BioCare 2500IU vitamin A product is supposed to have 2500IU per drop.

http://www.revital.co.uk/BioCare_Vitasorb_A From that website:
"INGREDIENTS FOR BioCare Vitasorb A:
One drop of BioCare Vitasorb A typically provides:
• Vitamin A 2500i.u. 750µg"

An odd thing is that on the BioCare website, I could only find a 5000IU vitamin A product:
http://www.biocare.co.uk/ecommerce/...iu)[sp]liquid[sp]vitamin[sp]A[sp][sp]15ml.htm
(One drop = 5000IU) http://www.biocare.co.uk/ecommerce/pdfs/165.pdf

One drop (2500IU) is just about the same dose called out for a 30 gram chameleon to be given once a week for two weeks to treat for a vitamin A deficiency.

Typical liquid: 1 drop = 0.05ml

Note: "Reptiles with vitamin A deficiency are likely to be deficient in other nutrients as well. In particular, adequate intakes of vitamin E, zinc, and protein are essential for metabolism of retinol. Patients should be placed immediately on a balanced diet."

Reminder: An O.D. of vitamin A is potentially life-threatening so go easy if you go at all . There are a lot more "eye closures" that have been caused by a long list of husbandry errors than ones caused by a true vitamin A deficiency. Careful dosing of vitamin A will potentially allow you to cross that concern off the list and let you concentrate on what is probably really wrong . On the other hand, maybe you'll hit pay-dirt and all will be well . Las Vegas will take the odds against you...

 

[TreelionsUK]

Dave your a hero!!!

Very well worked out and have saved me lots of troubles.

Im not new to keeping chameleons and i leaning towards using the vitamin A,it all just seems to make perfect sense to me that wild insects would carry this in there guts after eating dead animals ect

I would perfer to dose my animals at my own risk,then to offer them pinky mice ect

Thankyou for giving me a guide line for my particular product and thanks for taking the time to research this for me

Your a good man
Cheers!!!

 

[ruscon]

Treelions; i have studied this issue for years now and it seems the vast majority of vit A problems related to chameleon husbandry are do to a lack of retinol. The second edition of Maders reptile medicine and surgery describes it very well.
If your young panthers are already having issues with their eyes its likely the mother was under supplemented as chameleon eggs are normaly loaded with vit A. Chameleons themselves are poor synthesisers of retinol and in the wild get most of it from the prey insects they eat. You have to remember the insects chameleons eat are active during the day and exposed to sunshine so they have correct compounds of vit D,A etc. in their blood and tissues. The other problem is that the symptoms of A overdose and deficiency are the same. Our food insects are raised indoors without the benefit of sunshine and that is why we have to supplement.
Long term success has been had with parsons chams using several different supplements and nekton bird vitamin in sparing amounts. You might supplement 3 times every week, but each week you use a different brand so it creates a wider spectrum of minerals and vitamins. Cod liver oil is something i have used for years with good results. Hope this helps

 

[kinyonga]

ruscon said..."Our food insects are raised indoors without the benefit of sunshine and that is why we have to supplement"...can you please explain what that has to do with vitamin A.

 

[TreelionsUK]

Treelions; i have studied this issue for years now and it seems the vast majority of vit A problems related to chameleon husbandry are do to a lack of retinol. The second edition of Maders reptile medicine and surgery describes it very well.
If your young panthers are already having issues with their eyes its likely the mother was under supplemented as chameleon eggs are normaly loaded with vit A. Chameleons themselves are poor synthesisers of retinol and in the wild get most of it from the prey insects they eat. You have to remember the insects chameleons eat are active during the day and exposed to sunshine so they have correct compounds of vit D,A etc. in their blood and tissues. The other problem is that the symptoms of A overdose and deficiency are the same. Our food insects are raised indoors without the benefit of sunshine and that is why we have to supplement.
Long term success has been had with parsons chams using several different supplements and nekton bird vitamin in sparing amounts. You might supplement 3 times every week, but each week you use a different brand so it creates a wider spectrum of minerals and vitamins. Cod liver oil is something i have used for years with good results. Hope this helps

Thanks for the post,very interesting....
The guy i buy my chams off often has babys and most that i have got from him have little napps in the day not good i know but i normally have good results and things seem to get better as time goes on.
Saying that i recently had an eye problem with a small 3 month old mitsio..it looked like one of her eyes was bigger than the other and this eye remained closed 90% of the time,the the most worring thing happened and the other eye started closing also,on saturday i decided to give her a tiny dose of Vit A and i have got to say that this has worked wonders she now has open eyes and is moving around again,feeding and drinking....does it normally work this quick??? i am going to do the same once more this coming weekend

 

[ruscon]

ruscon said..."Our food insects are raised indoors without the benefit of sunshine and that is why we have to supplement"...can you please explain what that has to do with vitamin A.

Hi; insects active during the day have been shown to have large amounts of retinol (vitA) in their tissues. Those same insects raised indoors have substantially less. Many vertebrates store retinol in their livers but since insects don't have livers they cannot store it, only maintain normal levels.

 

[kinyonga]

ruscon said..." insects active during the day have been shown to have large amounts of retinol (vitA) in their tissues. Those same insects raised indoors have substantially less. Many vertebrates store retinol in their livers but since insects don't have livers they cannot store it, only maintain normal levels"...please explain further. Why would they have more vitamin A if they are active during the day?

 

[ruscon]

ruscon said..." insects active during the day have been shown to have large amounts of retinol (vitA) in their tissues. Those same insects raised indoors have substantially less. Many vertebrates store retinol in their livers but since insects don't have livers they cannot store it, only maintain normal levels"...please explain further. Why would they have more vitamin A if they are active during the day?

Hi kinyonga;; first i need to mention that blood levels of vit D and other useful compounds in the blood of diurnal lizards have been shown to be in what are considered to be normal amounts when they are outside and have access to sun light. These same lizards kept indoors with even very good uvb emitting bulbs have substantially lower levels. The same is true with prey insects such as mantids, stick insects winged insects , grasshoppers etc. diurnal insects. The fact that these insects live and bask in sunlight is not a coincidense. So in nature not only do you have the chameleon making use of natural sunlight to regulate levels of neccessary nutrients, but also various prey insects taking advantage of the sun light and mineral rich foliage which they can convert into useful levels of retinol in its animal form. In captivity you have minimal benefit of uvb for the reptile and none for the prey insects used for food. In fact most of what we have here in the states for feeder insects are actually nocturnal and would never or rarely be encountered by a chameleon. Roaches, crickets and various larval stages of worms are not the normal diet of chameleons. So you can see why there are so many problems in this department.

 

[kinyonga]

I understand the relationship of exposure to UVB with the production of D3. What I was asking you is the relationship of being active during the day to the vitamin A. You said..."insects active during the day have been shown to have large amounts of retinol (vitA) in their tissues." From what I have read insects have vitamin A to do with vision...but they are not high in vitamin A. There are some exceptions. Why would the amount of vitamin A be so much less in a nocturnal insect or one raised indoors?

 

[ruscon]

In the wild there may or may not be a huge difference in vit a between nocturnal and diurnal insects. But the insects we culture for food are almost always low in many vitamins, not only A. Its likely our feeding of the insects. Much of it is a grain diet, and there is no grain in the jungle. And the idea that feeding beta carotene rich vegies to feeder insects as a safe way to get vit A to your cham is a farce. I have not seen the analysis for roaches but crickets and silk worms are very low. You are right there are exceptions. Preying mantises are high not only in A but many compounds. In one of the documentarys i saw, mantises were the most common food taken at least at that time of filming. Anyway, the evidence speaks for itself. Chameleons in the wild eat primarily diurnal insects with out "dusting" and have been doing fine for millions of years.
10 or so years ago someone came out with an article about vit A the lizard killer and ever since reptile vets have been dealing with more and more vit A deficiency problems. Its a no brainer -- they had the same problem with human food in the 50s People had serious trouble. Take a look when you buy baby cereal, powdered milk anything. The A and D ius are off the chart because they are both very important especially in balance to each other. That is about as clear as i can make it.

 

[kinyonga]

Any carivorous insects should provide the chameleons with vitamin A (preformed?).

I still don't see the connection with vitamin A and the insects being dirunal or raised indoors or nocturnal. I don't know of any connection between the light and vitamin A.

 

[ruscon]

I don't know about any carnivorous insect; but preying mantis in the wild has ample amounts of retinol ; the animal form of vit A. Also tested were herbivorous insects such as locusts, bees and cicadas. All were found to have ample levels of retinol. Why do they have these levels? Who knows; A guess? Every organism takes full advantage of its environment. These are very active insects and sunlight is free energy. Perhaps high activity in a hot environment demands more retinol for all the cellular energy expended. I can't tell you why but this is how it is. Vields and Panthers it may not be so criticle as evidenced by the numbers of breeders with their own techniques. But many montane and calumma species it is absolutely important that they get it.
Don't get the idea that i am pushing large amounts of pre form A.. only that it is important and i really think people are too paranoid about possible overdose. It is far more likely your cham will suffer from a lack of it. Did you read a book from a few years back written by Linda Davis from sticky tongue farms? She was a devout anti A breeder; now she is completely out of the cham business;; she had a lot of problems. If you haven't already, i strongly recommend reading Mader 2nd edition reptile medicine and surgery. It was authored by over 60 prominent reptile veterinarians and gives a very good explanation of this debate.

 

[kinyonga]

You said..."But many montane and calumma species it is absolutely important that they get it"...the montanes are one group that very often suffer from hypervitaminosis A.

http://www.chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=35
"This species has been noted to be prone to hypervitaminosis A."

http://www.chameleonnews.com/?page=article&id=40
"Ch. (T.) montium are extremely susceptible to hypervitaminosis A. Great care must be taken to provide necessary vitamin supplementation without overdosing on vitamin A."

Did Linda get out of the business because of the trouble breeding or for other reasons?

I have not yet read the Mader second addition...but hope to soon. I know at least one of the authors of an article in the book.

I still say that dosing with preformed vitamin A needs to be done very carefully. Overdoing it not only causes hypervitminosis A and the problems that result from it, but it plays a part in the D3 levels and thus in MBD too.

 

[ruscon]

Hi; its been a while, sorry. I can tell you about my own experience with Parsoni, Globifer and Melleri. Over the course of a few years i recieved individuals who had been in another keepers care. They had such issues as excessively bulging eyes and the protrusion of their lower lips. I treated them with normal calcium/vit supplementation though relatively lightly. I also gave them some liquid multivitamin a few drops per week for a month, but i also put a few drops of cod liver oil on prey insects once a week. That is something i have continued to do.
After a few months the symptoms went away. It took longer with the Melleri, but he eventually shaped up.
I really think this sort of supplementation is necessary for these species. I have not had experience with the smaller african montanes like Quadricornis. They may well be sensitive to supplementation.
By the way how long did you have your globifer pair and what happened to them? Just curious

 

[sandrachameleon]

I have never provided Vitamin A Retinol direct supplementation to my chameleons, and none of them have ever had any eye issues. The most my chameleons might have gotten would have been very small amounts indirectly via eating a roach that might have had a small bit of cat or dog food once or twice in the months prior. Preformed Vitamin A is not at all necessary, IMHO, and is potentially dangerous. However, I would suggest that anyone considering using it consult with a vet and have a compounding pharmacy create small accurate (based on the weight of the chameleon and vet advice) dosages rather than guessing at it yourself.

 

[kinyonga]

When you use cod liver oil there is preformed vitamin A in it but also there is D3 in it....so I think that "counter-balances" one against the other....one of my main concerns with this is does it cause any organ damage?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cod_liver_oil

Concerning my globifers...they were WC adults and I had them in my care for over 5 years. To tell you exactly, I will have to look it up in my records. (They are stored away at the moment due to renovations.) The female lived longer than the male (6 years, I think...which being adult when I got her had to mean she was at least 7) and eventually died of a brain abcess. As they aged, the male seemed much older than the female...I would say that he died due to the natural aging process. The female produced at least one clutch of eggs but due to my inexperience at that time with egg hatching, they didn't hatch.

You said..."Its likely our feeding of the insects. Much of it is a grain diet"...I feed my crickets and some of the other insects greens and veggies.

I would be interested in reading any papers you have concerning vitamin A in insects. So far any papers I have read indicate that insects have some vitamin A involved with eyesight. I have found several others that indicate vitamin A in especially caterpillars (like silkworms, etc.)....but there is always more to learn.

 

[kinyonga]

Vitamin A in insects...
http://www.bioone.org/perlserv/?req.../0006-3606(2002)034[0273:NEOTIA]2.0.CO;2&ct=1
"The sample of caterpillars regularly eaten by these peoples was rich in beta carotene (provitamin A), and a 100 g ingestion guaranteed 323 percent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A."

"Only adult females which are producing eggs have a slightly orange blood because of the protein vitellogenin which is made in the cockroach liver (its fat body) and transported through the blood to the ovary. This protein like chicken yolk is orange because it carries a carotenoid, which is a vitamin A like molecule needed by embryos to develop normally."
http://www.trapsforroach.com/?node=main&id=275&lang=

http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache...+A"+AND+lepidoptera&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=26&gl=ca

 

[ruscon]

Well this could go on for ever so lets start at the beginning. As i recal Treelions was having eye problems with some young panthers. Someone suggested small doses on vit A and it worked. I then gave some background on what i had learned about the issue and your questioned was how wild insects could have more vt A. But that is not really the issue. The real issue is the isolation and restriction of this one vitamin from your pets diet as opposed to moderate supplementation which would include it. I am getting the strong impression you see this one vitamin as a danger, to be avoided at all costs. My position is that at least young animals and gravid females should have the full spectum of minerals and vitamins which includes vit A at the levels of at least 37 IUs per gram body weight.
My reasons are first my own experience; learned the hard way; and plenty of literature such as the book Care and Breeding of Chameleons edited by Philippee de Vosjoli and Gary Ferguson ,pages 20-21 where it is discovered that cricket food must contain at least 50-100IUs vitA to prevent symptoms such as loss of muscular control, spinal and tail kinking, eye closure, lesions, hemipenal impactions;; you must have this book.
Also,Fall 1997 Issue 25 page 13 where Ardi Abate talkes about an aritcle written by John Annis which caused as she put it "confusion for many readers that resulted in the avoid of (preformed) vitamin A supplements. In the 5 years subsequent to these articles, pathological and anecdotal evidence indicates that hypovitaminosis A may be playing a significant role in eye and tissue disease, reproductive failure the onset of bone disease and other health problems.
Then in winter 1997 issue 26 of CIN she goes on in depth starting on page 9