Vitamin Supplementation

"After canvassing the various web sites and sources of information, I can't seem to find a consistent recommendation on the frequency of vitamin..."

most people have likely been doing the frogs for no more than 3-5 years...of those who can say they've been longer few have frogs that have been in their collection longer than 5 years... and those that do seldom have had on consistent method of dusting over that time.

what Im saying is that the info isn't out there.

but I look at it as a question of wild feeding... in the wild bugs seem to go in fluxes... you find a high ant place and feed on ants for a long time... then maybe some fruit falls and you get flies and maggots...

cycling vitamins, I think, gives you a better chance to supply the animals needs but not over dose on one vit. Centrum silver is supposedly the closes to the animals make up... but maybe not the animals diet in the wild or, as the pills formulation has changed over time, UV Light

(Written by Tor Linbo on Frognet)

Ed’s Comments

[The supplementation regimen for the animals is of course dependent upon the supplement and the frequency of feeding. There have been significant changes in both the number of available supplements over the last 15 years and the different formulations during this period. If you are using a supplement designed for human nutrition always read the label to double check that vitamin D3 was used as the active ingredient as frogs unlike humans cannot use the other isomers of vitamin D. In addition, the ratio of A to D3 to E should always be 10 to 1 to 0.1. In general, if offering food daily when using a good supplement, you can alternate supplementation with a straight calcium carbonate dusting. Wild (and if a selection is available captive) herps have been shown to target insects that are calorically rich and/or contain higher levels of calcium when available. As these vitamins are fat stored, it is possible that the frogs in the wild feed on vitamin A or E rich food sources and then store the vitamin for later usage (It has been shown that in captive tortoises, three months exposure to unfiltered sunlight in the summer can allow the tortoise to store sufficient vitamin D3 reserves to carry the tortoise through the winter).]

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"This is a perennial debate but I think it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that dart frogs do not "need" UV light since just about every species in captivity has been maintained and bred successfully without it. However, this leaves the question of whether dart frogs can benefit from UV light and to my knowledge this has not been explored beyond simple conjecture. We could try to mimic the natural light environments of these animals but that is no easy task. Dart frogs vary between species, populations, and even individuals in the specific habitats they live in. Further natural light environments in forested ecosystems are extremely complex leading to an entire sub discipline in plant ecophysiology. The dappled light on a forest floor is a moving and shifting mosaic of light at varying intensities and duration. Sunflecks can provide a very significant amount of photosynthetically active energy to the forest floor even though overall light levels are low. The size, intensity, and duration of these

Whenever I hear people say that dart frogs are not exposed to UV light in the wild it makes me cringe because 1) dart frogs and their habitats are more diverse than we often realize and 2) light environments in forested habitats are too complex to allow such blanket statements.

My own opinion of UV in dart vivs is that you don't need it but it probably won't hurt as long as you are careful. It may even have some benefits like enhancement of sexual displays that we don't fully appreciate.

(Written by B Brock on Frognet, August 27, 2002)

Submitted to FFAQ by David Smith.

Ed’s Comment

[ UV lighting comes in three different groups, UVA, UVB, and UVC. When discussions originate around UV lighting, the reference is taken to mean UVB, as this wavelight range is metabolically important in the synthesis of vitamin D3. UVA has been shown to be important to many herps (and birds) for natural behaviors, as color patterns often are very different under UVA lighting. In addition, many insects have different visible patterns under UVA, which can stimulate natural feeding behaviors. UVC is used for sterilization of germs and other small organisms and therefore is not appropriate to directly expose live animals to plants. While UVB supplementation may not be necessary due to the advances made in nutritional supplementation, it has value as a “back up system”. The frogs will not synthesize any vitamin D3 if there is sufficient vitamin D3 in the diet. If the diet is marginal with respect to D3 or you have shy frogs that do not feed until most of the supplement has worn off the insects then the addition of UVB to the system could be of immense value. ]
6 Oct 03







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