BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Are there many major differences between brands?
Should I use D3 or no D3 or should I use both?
Do I need to use calcium if I use uvb?
What brands do you use?

i think you got it a bit upside down about calcium, uv and d3, so ill explain it in short.

in order to be able to pick up calcium from the food, animals as well as humans need the vitamin D3.

the vitamin d3 is naturally produced by the body, the skin to be precise, when hit by uvb light, the process is very refined and interesting if i may say so myself.

you need to supply calcium to a growing skink, im sure an adult skink gets a lot from dogfood however i think its best to be on the safe side when it comes to this!

you will need either uvb lamp or D3 in the calcium. supplying both at the same time is gonna be expensive and isnt needed, so pick one way you think is good for your skink


about calcium brands, i do not know. the store i get it from sells 100g for 1 euro, and its good. it is of no particular brand.
i do not believe there is much difference between the brands also, just check the ingredients. if you have a low supply of good veggies in winter i can recommend one with c and maybe b vitamins (water soluble vitamins only, too much of the fat soluble ones is bad, and they get that in the dogfood already) - but if you live in the states this is no issue. its just me who lives in a cold country with bad imported veggies.

I don't want to get into another UVB debate, but I will do my best to convey the results of a fairly long term study done by one extremely respected person in the BTS community.

This breeder kept one group of skinks (#1) away from any UVB exposure and supplemented their diet with calcium that included D3.

Another group (#2) was kept with UVB lighting, but given calcium that did not include vitamin D3.

The third group (#3) was given both UVB lighting and calcium that included D3.

The results were as follows:

Group #1 - No health issues at all. Extremely healthy skinks that bred very well.

Group #2 - Some of these skinks seemed normal, and others began developing the first signs of MBD. The breeding rates were much lower. Even the skinks that appeared healthy had smaller litters, and the babies were not as hardy.

Group #3 - These skinks were all healthy and showed no signs of any health issues. They bred well with large healthy litters.

This evidence is of course not ultimately conclusive, but it does support the theory that artificial UVB lighting may not be totally effective for the calcium needs of BTS. It is important to note that this study was done a number of years ago, before mercury vapor bulbs were available. The best bulbs available at the time were used, but they were not MVB.

I don't know if that is very useful to you or not, but personally, I would supplement with a calcium that included D3 regardless of whether or not you provide UVB lighting.

Your response was very helpful for me Jeff. I have been following this thread as the calcium issue is one I worry about. I even keep a diet journal where I write what I feed on what days including any supplements.

I provide UVB light (but it is through a screen top), and give calcium (egg shell) at every other feeding, and then the Calcium w/D3 at the next feeding. So they get the Calcium w/D3 at least 1x/week.

StaceyLeigh wrote:
I provide UVB light (but it is through a screen top), and give calcium (egg shell) at every other feeding, and then the Calcium w/D3 at the next feeding. So they get the Calcium w/D3 at least 1x/week.

I do the exact same!- Use UVB lights and feed calcium with D3 every other feeding, and egg shells the days without calcium with D3.

I use Repti Calcium with D3, I don't know the best brands, but it (and doing what I said above) helped cure Elliot's MBD.

Just curious but Why do u feed egg shells? Do they have calcium in them?

Crazy76 wrote:Just curious but Why do u feed egg shells? Do they have calcium in them?

yes they do xD quite a lot.

if you ever had chickens, or plan to get, it is always a good idea to feed leftover eggshells to the hens who laid the eggs.

Jeff has answered the "should I use" question.

When choosing either calcium or calcium with D3 supplements look on the label to see it is phosphorous free. All the name brands will state so. Calcium derived from fine ground oyster shell is a good natural source. For calcium without D3 eggshells are cheap. Drying them in a slow oven then grinding works well.

Can you have too much UV? Because ReptileUVB says so.

The distance you have now is way too close for any of our Mega-Ray®s because of the amount of UVB they produce.

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Can you have too much UV? Because ReptileUVB says so.

The distance you have now is way too close for any of our Mega-Ray®s because of the amount of UVB they produce.

yes you can have too much and too little. too much uvb is among the reasons we get skin cancer from sunbasking, im not quite sure how this works wth BTS however.