Diet and dog food discussion - Split from Conflicting Advice

[hurricanejen]

I would say take the second vet's advice; my own experience with reptiles has been that the less you do to screw with their own internal workings, and the more you do to provide the ideal conditions the need, the better they will do.

I would also agree with the vet; I think this site in relation to blue tongues is the last reptile group I've met or heard of still recommending dog or cat food as a suitable diet for any reptile. The folks here do a commendable job finding information and quality food for their skinks, don't get me wrong, but with such a wealth of options that make dog/cat food unnecessary or obsolete, why use it?
That's my personal feeling on the dog and cat food - monitor keepers years (decades?) ago threw out feeding dog or cat food as a viable option for including in a healthy diet for their animals.
If you must use a meat based mix, try the mix used by the San Diego Zoo for their monitors - 1 lb ground, lean turkey, 1 - 2 raw eggs + shells, and a tablespoon of calcium and a little multivitamin. When I made this mix, I also incorporated giblets and shrimp, as well as superworms, canned insects, and giant mealworms. These days I prefer using whole prey items, but it is a great filler if you have larger animals that need more calories. (black throat monitors, anyone?)

I use and adore the Rep Cal adult bearded dragon food pellets for my skinks, and they also LOVE the stuff. I still mix up the diet, though, and provide supplements on their insects and greens. I alternate between calciums as I go through a jar about every 4 to 6 months, but my favorites are the Minerall Indoor formula and the Repashy Calcium Plus. Check the repashy website - he did a fantastic job on researching the amount of supplements in his, well, supplements.

Check out the Repashy "Rescue Cal" as an option for increasing immediate supply of calcium. I'm sorry I am not totally up to date, because I'm sure you've posted this prior, but what kind of UVB/basking lights are you using, and how far away from them can your skink get? Does the UVB go through a screen? What brand is the UVB?

Good luck with your skink!!
~Jen

[kl]

It is confusing as to what food is best. For yrs, I only used real beef cubes from the deli and lean, ground turkey, which I boiled and then mixed with veggies, etc.. I thought I was doing good by not using dog food. Then one day, a vet who worked for Franklin Park Zoo in Massachusetts told me I was not doing the right thing by not using dog food. I suppose that if the food is suppose to keep dogs healthy, why not reptiles? But, I always questioned some of the unnatural additives you see in the ingredients. It seems that fresh, cooked meats should be healthier. After all, they aren't eating dog food in the wilds. Now, I don't have a clue as to what is suppose to be best.

KL

[Katrina]

Jen - thanks for posting that. It is great to hear new opinions!

I think the main reasons dog food is still recommended here is because a lot of the biggest BTS breeders still use is as a staple and have for many, many years. It is hard to argue with its success if blueys are healthy and breeding after a decade or two. It is easy to use because it has a decent Ca:P ratio and has a lot more vitamins and nutrients than muscle meat and is cost effective and convenient.

A more complex diet with lots of different foods is great, but the average pet owner won't purchase a ton of different foods or live feeders for a single reptile (or will start out with good intentions...). So it seems like the simplest diet recommendation is usually the most successful one - one that the most people will follow. Dog food is cheap, works well, and has a great success rate which is why it is so often recommended.

I'd love to know why the beardie pellets would be better than dog food for blueys. In my opinion, a diet of a variety of well gut loaded feeders would be ideal, but it isn't something that most keepers will be able to offer. If there is a good reason why people should pay more for beardie pellets over dog food then I would definitely recommend the pelleted diet instead. I'm still learning and I'd love to hear different opinions and discussions!

[hurricanejen]

No problem Kat! It's fun to debate this and to challenge my own views on it - I could be wrong!

I think when it comes to using dog or cat food as a dietary staple, it would depend heavily on the brand and type of dog/cat food. From what I've seen in people looking up the ingredients and using brands such as blue buffalo etc, where the emphasis is on organic, or whole foods, honestly that doesn't seem so bad. However, the average 'cheap' brand of dog food is typically much lower in quality ingredients, and not nearly as healthy for your animal, dog or otherwise. Those 'meat chunks' are actually reformed beef or chicken meal - not actual meat. Google Pedigree dog food, for example, for reviews on the product. It's typically made with corn, and the next biggest ingredient is bone meal. Bone meal is typically made with the unusable, unfit for humans leftovers from slaughterhouses. Personally, that's not something I want to feed my dog OR my skink!
There are quality dog foods out there, though.
But...those dog foods, from my own experience trying to find them for my dog, are on the expensive side. Depending on where you get them, cans go for $2 to $4 each. You can easily make the lean turkey mix and freeze leftovers in icecube trays for under $10 total, and have enough to last you for weeks, if not months, depending on how many blueys you have.

The pelleted beardie food I use, Rep Cal, is $14.99 for a 5 lb bag, and my skinks literally eat the stuff like it's candy. It's got supplements in it formulated for omnivorous lizards (beardies may not be quite as omnivorous as blueys, but they do eat a variety of greens and insects), and I use either the beardie or the iguana formula in exchange for greens when I can't get them.
For protein, I honestly don't count the pelleted diet - I have a hard time stomaching that a life of pellets is ideal, for the skink, my dog, or myself. I use canned insects, live insects, and rodents.

There's a lot to it, and you're right, many skink breeders and keepers have had a lot of success with dog food. But then, even dog people are changing it up - big time dog breeders and show dogs are moving towards a raw diet, and finding the health of their animals increasing significantly. So we're right back where we started!

[Karen]

I just picked up some of the Rep Cal Beardie food to see how Sylvia likes it. For now I added it in with her usual food mix to see how she likes it. Which kind do you use Jen? I picked up the Adult formula and the pieces are larger than the little round ones I see in your picture.

[Bird_Brain]

Here is my 2 cents on the Dog food vs Rep cal pelleted diet.

According to Pedigrees website and the formula I typically use this is the ingredient list:
Sufficient water for processing, Chicken By-products, Chicken, Meat By-products, Beef, Liver, Brewers Rice, Minerals (Potassium Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Copper Sulfate, Potassium Iodide), Vegetable Oil (source of Linoleic Acid), Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Carrageenan, Added Color, Dried Yam, Guar Gum, Xanthan Gum, Vitamins (Vitamin E, A & D3 Supplements, D-calcium Pantothenate, Thiamine Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Biotin), Natural Flavor Blend, Onion Powder, Bay Leaves, Garlic Powder, Sodium Nitrite (for color retention).

Now lets take a look at the Rep-cal Bearded dragon diet's ingredient list:
Ground Wheat, Corn Gluten Meal, Poultry Byproduct Meal, Soybean Meal, Apple Fiber, Calcium Carbonate, Dicalcium Phosphate, Vitamin C, Choline Chloride, Bee Pollen, Dried Beet Pulp, Vegetable Oil, Methionine, Vitamin E Supplement, Spirulina, Iron Sulfate, Potassium Chloride, Zinc Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Manganous Sulfate, Manganese Oxide, Niacin, Copper Sulfate, D-Calcium Panthothenate, D-Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Vitamin A Acetate, Riboflavin Supplement, Pridioxine Hydrochloride, Sodium Selenite, Thiamine Mononitrate, D-Activated Animal Sterol (Source of vitamin D3), Hesperidin, Menadione Dimethylpyrimidinol Bisulfite (Source of Vitamin K), Cobalt Carbonate, Inositol, Ethyle-nediamine Dihydroiodide, Folic Acid, Artificial Color, Natural Flavor.

Now as we can see, Pedigree dog food actually has MORE meat products than Rep-Cal BD diet. Rep-cal BD's protein sources are composed primarily of veggie proteins.

Meat MEAL is actually much BETTER than whole meats when listed on the ingredient list. When they state that it is in meal form, the water content is extracted thus forming the meal. So if you compared two foods that the first ingredient on one was Chicken and the second food had Chicken Meal as a second ingredient, the second food will probably be composed of more meat than the first. Reason is because the ingredients are listed by weight and was we all know, water is rather heavy.

Secondly, we have mentioned about feeding whole prey items to skinks. The reason is because they get the bones (calcium) and organ meats (Liver, kidneys, brain, heart, etc). How is that much different than feeding a dog food that has meat by products? Of course you may not want to eat that stuff, but I think skinks would greatly benefit from it.

But I do find it ironic that you are saying Pedigree canned foods have all this corn/grains (which it only has rice and out of all the grains that is the one Id want over corn and wheat), meat meals, when in reality if you believe in what you are saying, I think the Rep-cal BD food would be worse than the dog food.

But again, by-products in my dogs foods, Ill pass. But for my skinks, I think it is great!

[Jeff]

Reptileking, I was trying to find time to respond to this thread appropriately, but haven't had the chance yet. If I did, I would have pointed out most of the same things you did. Thanks for that. The point is, most of the "crap" in the cheap dog food is actually GOOD for our skinks. I wouldn't eat it myself in a million years, but it makes the "poor quality" dog food more nutritious for bts than the expensive refined brands.

[Bird_Brain]

Reptileking, I was trying to find time to respond to this thread appropriately, but haven't had the chance yet. If I did, I would have pointed out most of the same things you did. Thanks for that. The point is, most of the "crap" in the cheap dog food is actually GOOD for our skinks. I wouldn't eat it myself in a million years, but it makes the "poor quality" dog food more nutritious for bts than the expensive refined brands.

Not a problem

As just to clarify, I have spent quite some time researching food for my dogs and cats. I agree 100% that corns, by products, etc have no/very little benefit to my dog and cats health. I actually feed Wellness foods to both my dogs and cat. However, I dont feel that Wellness canned food would be any better for my skinks, thus sticking to the "cheaper, crap" canned dog foods.

[Alioop]

I had done a quick search on Rep Cal and the first thing I noticed was the ingredients. Not to sound like a copy cat, but ditto to what Jeff said. The exact same points came to my mind.

[El Lobo]

I think it is going to be difficult getting to the bottom of Gauge's problem without comprehensive blood chemistry. My option would be to go with a vet putting emphasis on diagnostics to establish root cause, rather than merely treating systems as they occur.

I don't feed either dog or cat food to the blotchies only because I don't like the smell in the house, but I concur with what others have been stating as to the benefits of especially dog food. I wouldn't consider cat food due to the added taurine which I have not been able to establish the need for in a bluey's diet. As a consequence, the blotchies are fed a raw food diet with the exception of cooked chicken which they would only have about once every six or so weeks. From time to time I have added a few of the Vetafarm Lizard Food pellets to their meals. Sometimes they eat them, other times they don't. Personally, I would never consider pelleted food as the base of a diet for any pet. Good quality pellets do contain a synthesised balance of vitamins, minerals etc. but in my opinion, apart from that balance, are an unnatural food source. They rapidly break down to a mushy compound upon contact with saliva, not providing any real need for the animal to masticate food. I have concerns that in the long term this may be detrimental to the oral hygiene and muscle wastage of those animals fed primarily on a pelleted or other soft food diet. However, I do feed very high quality pellets to our rabbits to address any potential diet shorfall, but only a very small quantity as the pellets promote an incorrect jaw motion that does not provide the essential molar grinding action.

[hurricanejen]

I personally don't use it as a protein source - I use whole prey items instead. I use the rep cal as a veggie addition.

What concerns me with the dog food is that it's the stuff that's not fit for use in any other way - it's that nasty bit on the slaughterhouse floor, it's the pieces that are too dirty or too rotten. The cooking process generally eliminates most harmful bacteria and germs, so the dead, dying, diseased, or disabled animals are made into various meat meals. It's still considered too risky for human consumption, but diseased, several days dead animals, and dying animals are just fine for animal food!
No, not stuff we want to eat, but it's not the kind of stuff I want my skink eating either.
But hey, I guess that's just me.

I haven't checked pedigree's labels in a long time, just googled the reviews on it real quick as a refresher. Could be they've changed the ingredients list, in which case, hooray!

The stuff pictured is from when my skinks were younger, less than a year, and I gave them the juvenile bearded formula instead. They crunch the adult stuff down like it's candy. My female has literally charged and chased down my dog to stop him from sneaking into her cage and eating the food while she was out in the living room!

[Jeff]

Hurricane, I truly admire your desire to give your animals the best possible diet. I am in no way trying to tell you that you should change what you are doing. I just think it is important to explain why some of us think that the "low quality" dog food is actually the best possible protien source for our skinks.

You do realize that wild skinks frequently eat carrion if they come upon it, right? You know what carrion is, right? It is dead and rotting animal matter. It could be 6 hours old, or 6 days old. Either way it is a dead, rotting animal. This is one of the things they eat I'm the wild. Why should we worry about our captive skinks eating something that contains a small amount of this?

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

I personally don't use it as a protein source - I use whole prey items instead. I use the rep cal as a veggie addition.

What concerns me with the dog food is that it's the stuff that's not fit for use in any other way - it's that nasty bit on the slaughterhouse floor, it's the pieces that are too dirty or too rotten. The cooking process generally eliminates most harmful bacteria and germs, so the dead, dying, diseased, or disabled animals are made into various meat meals. It's still considered too risky for human consumption, but diseased, several days dead animals, and dying animals are just fine for animal food!
No, not stuff we want to eat, but it's not the kind of stuff I want my skink eating either.
But hey, I guess that's just me.

I haven't checked pedigree's labels in a long time, just googled the reviews on it real quick as a refresher. Could be they've changed the ingredients list, in which case, hooray!

The stuff pictured is from when my skinks were younger, less than a year, and I gave them the juvenile bearded formula instead. They crunch the adult stuff down like it's candy. My female has literally charged and chased down my dog to stop him from sneaking into her cage and eating the food while she was out in the living room!

I may have missed it. But what are the whole prey items you feed?

El lobo- what do you feed raw? Would I be able to find it here in the states?

[hurricanejen]

I guess there's a couple caveats to my aversion to using processed meat - I just plain dislike slaughterhouses and the way the animals are treated that are destined to be there. Soooo I'm a little biased, I'll admit it.

I feel you can provide equally high quality, if not superior quality, food to your animals using an entire prey item, rather than the leavings from a slaughterhouse floor. Monitors are known to eat carrion, and in fact lead a much more carnivorous life than our skinks do, and yet the best monitor keepers steer towards whole prey items, such as (and in some cases exclusively) whole rodents. If dog food is such a great protein source, why wouldn't reptilian carnivore keepers use it?

Wild blue tongues, to boot, are not nearly as heavily carnivorous as a monitor lizard. In another thread (advanced questions, I believe) talking about whole prey items for skinks, I mention a study I found while researching my book. They studied primarily eastern and centralian skinks, but found their diet to be mainly beetles, beetle larvae, fruit and seeds, with a small handful of skinks having carrion in their stomachs. Leafy greens were found incidentally, either with a recently consumed prey item (blades of grass with a beetle, for example) or in the actual stomach of a prey item.
This doesn't mean they don't need leafy greens, or that they should eat primarily beetles in captivity, but it does provide food for thought as to what a balanced diet should contain. Why does an animal whose diet consists mainly of insects need such a dense, high protein food in their diet?
Another study I found studied enrichment behavior in skinks - the simple act of scattering mealworms in the substrate of a cage with a hungry skink lengthens the time spent feeding and engages them for considerable time. It also gets them moving - helpful for maintaining the weight on a captive animal. Dog food doesn't provide that.

Advanced keepers, you obviously have this down pat. I see the pictures up, and your animals are healthy, gorgeous, and reproducing with equally healthy, gorgeous babies. So something must be working with the dog food. It's probably the rest of the stuff you feed to balance it out. But I think it's the kind of thing advanced keepers should consider as an aspect of their diet, much like only advanced monitor keepers should consider housing their monitors without UVB. Some of the best do it, but that doesn't mean the average person with average knowledge is going to have that same success without that advanced keeper's experience/knowledge as well.
It's something that the beginner can take way out of context, and the skinks really truly love the stuff. They'll single it out in their food, and if say a beginner is offering too large of a meal portion, with the skink eating primarily a cheap dog food that may not have the most skink-ideal balance of calcium to phosphorous etc... You end up with a metabolic skink.

Monitorlizard - I use insects, both live and canned, as well as mice. I have the fortune of working at a reptile store, so by this time I've also sampled every single one of the pelleted, canned, and cubed foods available for reptiles. I like these because they are FOR reptiles - they have the supplements etc that they need. I still don't like them as an exclusive diet, but as a part of a bigger diet plan? Awesomeeee. They freaking LOVE and I mean LOVE the monitor bites from nature zone. Check check check it out:

http://youtu.be/zZnWX4vIifI

[hurricanejen]

Sorry, I suppose I should add a btw:
I'm trying to make a case for suggesting beginners focus less on including dog food, and more on whole prey items. Frozen rodents, giblets, insects, canned insects, all of that works as well if not better than dog food in the diet.

But that is also very much a personal opinion. I don't have studies or anything to back that up, just personal experience and observation. Thanks for the lively debate, it's fun!

[Katrina]

So something must be working with the dog food. It's probably the rest of the stuff you feed to balance it out. But I think it's the kind of thing advanced keepers should consider as an aspect of their diet, much like only advanced monitor keepers should consider housing their monitors without UVB. Some of the best do it, but that doesn't mean the average person with average knowledge is going to have that same success without that advanced keeper's experience/knowledge as well.

I believed exactly what you believe for a while. I didn't believe in feeding dog food because it wasn't something they would find in the wild and it was full of who knows what. It just seemed wrong. This forum actually recommended a different diet, with emphasis on variety and things like boiled chicken breast and collards etc. Chicken breast seemed like the perfect, lean protein - simple and they loved it. And it wasn't so bad if you were careful and bought lots of greens and veggies and fed tons of variety. But we started seeing cases of MBD and other problems - the diet was over-complicated and when people cut corners there were huge issues. Not everyone has the time or desire to source out all kinds of variety. Things at work get busy and you simplify the diet to chicken and collards and soon you see deficiency problems. Fatal_S on here had lots of issues with the diet and even lost some BTS - luckily she shared all this and everyone learned from it.

That really changed my mind on the dog food thing - dog food is something experts have been using for decades with minimal extra ingredients added and they have great success. It isn't the other things they feed - they might add frozen veggies, but the diet is pretty much dog food. It works.

I now recommend it highly to beginners because even if they don't stick around and post and learn Ca:P ratios, oxalates, goitrogens, the merit of various veggies and the best and worst fruits to feed - even if they buy the BTS on a whim and don't really learn enough to care for it properly, if they feed a diet based on dog food the BTS will get decent Ca:P ratio, it will get lots of various vitamins and nutrients and it will be the simplest diet I can recommend that will have the most success. I recommend dog food because from what I have seen it is idiot proof - keep it simple and most people will be able to do it, even if they don't research or grate up squashes.

Advanced keepers don't feed a dog food based diet because they have superior knowledge - they feed dog food because they have lots of animals to feed and it is the simplest, cheapest diet that gets the best results.

I agree that well gut loaded feeders would be ideal. But the person with one bluey isn't going to feed a variety of perfectly gutloaded roaches, horn worms, silks, dew worms and snails - that won't last! But they can stick to dog food and some greens/veggies.

I'm very open to other ideas and options, but right now dog food is the best, basic diet ingredient that I know of. And again - I know exactly where you are coming from because I'm sure you can find posts from me several years ago arguing the same points.

[Fatal_S]

I'll just parrot everything Kat said. She has a way with words

I used to be against dogfood & supplements (in general the whole forum was). I spent all my time and effort and money buying human-grade foods to make meals with variety. I did as much as I could afford to do at the time. When I had fewer skinks they all had UVB lights. I felt I was giving great care.

Then my skinks started showing signs of MBD. I tried altering the diet, adding more high-calcium greens. I was still avoiding dogfood/supplements. MBD kept getting worse. I went to the vet, and was recommended to avoid dogfood, but to give calcium w/o D3. So I did. It kept getting worse. At this point my tannies were in very bad shape and my Northerns were getting bumpy. Little Cloud the silver tanny had it worst. His bones were so deformed he couldn't grow.

It was Brad who pointed out to me that my human-grade meats (esp chicken breast) were terrible for calcium. No matter how much I added the meats were just sapping it all. This led to a huge discussion here. I found out the big breeders tended to use dogfood/veggies/calcium w/ D3. I switched.

Very quickly the skinks started to show improvement. They began growing again, and the lumps they'd had evened out. Cloud was too badly damaged, as he grew his body couldn't handle it, and he passed away. That was probably one of the worst moment of my life; I knew I'd caused that with my narrow-minded thinking and refusal to see I had a big problem.

Now, just over a year later, my skinks are doing fantastic IMO. They're fat and healthy, two females had great litters this summer, and the signs of the MBD are nearly gone. You can still see the effects on a couple of the tannies and northerns, but I hold out hope that the improvement will continue and they'll live long, healthy lives.

I'll be posting new pre-brumation photos of all the skinks later today. They look so great and healthy

I will add that if I had the space and money I would definitely feed huge amount of insects (roaches & worms), and more whole foods like rats. I'd like to have a diet of live insects, dogfood/veggies/calcium w/ D3, pelleted diet, and F/T rats. I'd also like to have UVB for all the skinks. I'm working towards that (too expensive when I can't breed the insects myself right now, or order rats in bulk), but right now I'm glad that dogfood is able to give my animals a healthy life.

I do find it odd that the "by-products" you're upset about being in dog-food are the same parts that come in the whole rats that you recommend. I think it's all those extra bits-and-pieces that don't get included in human-foods that make dogfood and whole prey items so much healthier, or at least that that's part of it. IMO, until I learn otherwise of course.

Mods, maybe this should be seperated into a new thread? I feel bad taking over this medical thread with diet talk.

[kailey0317]

Hi I'm new! I guess you guys are talking about wet dog food right? And what exactly is the "cheap, crappy" kind...

[Bird_Brain]

Hi I'm new! I guess you guys are talking about wet dog food right? And what exactly is the "cheap, crappy" kind...

Welcome! When I talk about the "cheap, crappy" kind, I am typically referring to any brand available in supermarket/grocery store. This could include Pedigree, Alpo, Might Dog, Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, etc.

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

I use spots stew cat food. Is that ok? I can see the vegetables in it but should I be concerned because of the taurine?