old school supplementation method?

studiocham

studiocham

New Member
Never know where you'll find tricks for care of exotics. I was reading Cosentino's biography of Edward Marshall Boehm, an animal ceramist and apparently a cutting-edge aviculturist in the 60's. One of his insectivorous bird care articles is reprinted in the book, and it has this formula for supplementation:

"We have developed a positive preventative of rickets [MBD]... Preventative measures consist of taking a few drops of tasteless cod liver oil and rubbing them between the palms of the hands. Mealworms are then taken and similarly rubbed to give them a slight coating of cod liver oil. Care must be taken not to overdo the oil application, as it apparently inhibits the breathing mechanism of the worms. This causes asphyxiation, the birds are disinterested when the worms display no movement. A mixture of 75 per cent calcium carbonate, and 25 per cent steamed bone meal is prepared and placed in a large commerical-type salt shaker... After the application of oil to the insects, they are dusted lightly with the above mixture. When the food is placed for the morning feeding, the shaker is carried along and a lsight sprinkling applied directly to the food of that particular aviary." p.166

The cod liver has both A & D to aid absorbing the Ca. Maybe not mealworms, but silkworms may be a possible prey item for this method applied to chameleons?
 
Brilliant!
I do a similar thing here, but the oil only twice a month ... and I had not considered rolling the worms between my palms.
There is going to be concern about overdosing on preformed vitamin A with this method ... but not from me.
Also, I usually supplement the calcium separately, but see no reason why it couldn't be dusted onto the fish oiled worm.
Superworms would work great for this!

-Brad
 
Today was (is) a supplement with vitamin A day and I employed this method with some superworms.
It worked great!
Thanks again Kristina

-Brad
 
I tried it with some superworms too.

But pay attention to the line in the instructions that states: "Care must be taken not to overdo the oil application, as it apparently inhibits the breathing mechanism of the worms."

I was a bit over-zealous with the oil on my first application, and the superworm was dead within 3 minutes. It stiffens up and stops moving. Nothing I did could revive it... ("How do you revive a superworm?" I hear you ask. Well, sometimes I've found superworms 'drowned' in their feeder cup by the misting system: if you simply dry them off and wrap them in a paper towel, they come back to 'life' within a few hours and will wriggle their way out of the paper. It doesn't work for crickets.)

The other superworms did fine with a lighter application of oil though.
 
Ah yes,
Less is more with the vitamin A.
Not just for the feeders ... but for your chameleon as well;)

-Brad
 
Does anybody know what the possible side effects of giving a chameleon excess n-3 fatty acids?

Granted in a lot of humans these polyunsaturated fatty acids can be benificial. They can also prove fatal or cause problems. One I would worry about is the suppression of the immune system. Lowering blood pressure in an animal with an already slow metabolism and heart beat might not be such a good idea either.

My worries may have no merit on this subject. Rather I know what some of these acids do in the human body and am simply comparing them over. I doubt I would ever find a research article about it to double check before posting.
 
Jordan, I haven't heard/read anything on that, sorry. Going by the success of Mr. Boehm's bird projects, and some similarities in bird and herp keeping, it's probably safer than other methods of A delivery. Probably.

I tried to locate nutritional info on insects, which would tell us roughly how much Omega 3, etc. chams would normally consume, but couldn't find it quantified. Just these Nutritional Content "labels" for common insects, scroll down to the links:
http://www.slshrimp.com/Data/Links.html

... which weren't even complete, unless I missed something in my skimming?

I tried this method by dipping the crickets' heads in a puddle of the CLO, dabbing excess on a paper towel, then dipping into Ca powder. This way, the crix keep breathing and moving, and less is more with montanes.
 
Funny you mentioned this because i picked up some of this cod liver oil a couple days ago from GNC. From what ive heard, oils contained inside slugs/snails in Madagascar are similar in content to that of cod liver oil. This is probably where they receive pre-formed vit A in their diet in the wild. I just started using it but im using this oil on 1 feeder for each cham every 2 or 3 weeks.
 
Nicodemayo said:
This is probably where they receive pre-formed vit A in their diet in the wild.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that all eyed-arthropods store Vit A in their eyes. Chams can get some A from the bodies of their prey, not even counting the gutload or manmade supps.

Interesting about the gastropod oils, thank you!
 
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