fluxlizard
Avid Member
OK, so this dropped in my inbox this morning for human health use, but is very relevant for chameleons.
Basically- it boils down to this-
During the winter months, most of the US (and Canada and Europe, etc) the angle of the sun prevents UVB from the sun reaching the earth.
So, if we have a beautiful day in early March for example, UVB may not be reaching our lizards if we take them outdoors for basking.
Similarly, if we build a lovely greenhouse with special glass that allows for the penetration of UVB from the sunlight, there will be none available from perhaps mid september to mid March in many areas.
The sun needs to be above a 50 degree angle to allow penetration of UVB through the atmosphere.
You can calclate your area here and see what the angle of the sun is on any given day during the year and what hours during the day the angle exceeds 50 degrees (only a few hours around noon in spring and fall when UVB actually penetrates). A nice quick and easy calculation can be done here:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
The original article about this is found here:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/26/maximizing-vitamin-d-exposure.aspx?e_cid=20120326_DNL_art_1#_edn3
If that makes you subscribe and you don't want to or just want to see the video explaining how to do it, it can be found here:
Watch the youtube video
Keep in mind if this guy is selling stuff and if you subscribe you will get lots of email newsletters constantly, so you may want to just watch the video. But his stuff is pretty interesting usually and I enjoy it.
I was aware of some of this problem, but sort of ignored it, not knowing the necessary calculations. So I see now that I've had my kids putting their bearded dragons in the windows with glass raised sometimes when there is no UVB to be found anyway...
Basically- it boils down to this-
During the winter months, most of the US (and Canada and Europe, etc) the angle of the sun prevents UVB from the sun reaching the earth.
So, if we have a beautiful day in early March for example, UVB may not be reaching our lizards if we take them outdoors for basking.
Similarly, if we build a lovely greenhouse with special glass that allows for the penetration of UVB from the sunlight, there will be none available from perhaps mid september to mid March in many areas.
The sun needs to be above a 50 degree angle to allow penetration of UVB through the atmosphere.
You can calclate your area here and see what the angle of the sun is on any given day during the year and what hours during the day the angle exceeds 50 degrees (only a few hours around noon in spring and fall when UVB actually penetrates). A nice quick and easy calculation can be done here:
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/AltAz.php
The original article about this is found here:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/03/26/maximizing-vitamin-d-exposure.aspx?e_cid=20120326_DNL_art_1#_edn3
If that makes you subscribe and you don't want to or just want to see the video explaining how to do it, it can be found here:
Watch the youtube video
Keep in mind if this guy is selling stuff and if you subscribe you will get lots of email newsletters constantly, so you may want to just watch the video. But his stuff is pretty interesting usually and I enjoy it.
I was aware of some of this problem, but sort of ignored it, not knowing the necessary calculations. So I see now that I've had my kids putting their bearded dragons in the windows with glass raised sometimes when there is no UVB to be found anyway...
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OMG...I get April-August and only from about 9:30am-ish to 2pm-ish...hmm that is kinda a bummer! Great info though! Now I don't feel so bad not getting them out first thing in the morning!! Or at all right now for that matter! Might explain why Claude was so happy to go back into his cage yesterday...I couldn't figure it out...went right to his UVB basking branch too...
