Ramrod
Chameleon Enthusiast
All is well
no disrespect sent. Give you a two thumbs up for your rescue efforts and need more like you.
Vitamin A suppliment
- Thread starter Ramrod
- Start date
no disrespect sent. Give you a two thumbs up for your rescue efforts and need more like you.
ERKleRose
Chameleon Enthusiast
You can use a drop on the back of a feeder of a 10,000 IU preformed Vitamin A gel capsule once a month or as needed for an extra boost (this is for panthers, not jacksons or any other sensitive/montane species) if you notice something/your vet has diagnosed a preformed Vitamin A deficiency.
Ramrod
Chameleon Enthusiast
Hey, that's a good one. I learned something new today
thanks for the input.
cham girl
Avid Member
ThanksAll is well
coastal_chameleon
Avid Member
this would be Proformed a tho wouldn't it ?
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
I’m not sure about these and will have to look further into them. Snails would not surprise me at all.
from Mader’s Reptile and amphibian medicibe and surgery:
false katydids, migratory locusts, termites, silkworms, and 4 wild caught lepidopteran larvae are the only insects that are not Vitamin A deficient
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
It has lots of different carotenoids in it, not just beta-carotine, but no preformed vitamin A as stated earlier.
I think this is an important point because the wide spectrum of carotenoids available from this supplement may provide the needed building blocks for vitamin A production within the chameleon through an “entourage effect” of multiple carotenoids being processed together
(different conversation, but I’m not convinced chameleons can’t produce vitamin A in vivo either)
coastal_chameleon
Avid Member
This part always confuses me . if an insect eats plant based vitamin a ( proformed ) it doest convert it and store it as preformed . so eating mung beans would be the same right ? So does feeding preformed vitamin a like egg yolk to crickets mean they are able to store preformed vitamin a ?
cham girl
Avid Member
It’s a tough question John Courtney Smith has done a book about it Bill Strand has talked about it on his podcast some say yes which I believe, some say no. I believe God intended the lesser animals to consume nutrients that the bigger animals could then retrieve from them, and that is a circle of life created that way.
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
So it’s been shown that you can enhance calcium, vitamin A, D, and E content in a direct measurable fashion through gutloading.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/zoo.10082
And through feeding an enhanced diet
https://www.researchgate.net/public...eder_Insects_Fed_Enhanced_Diets_During_Growth
Therefore I think we can say that properly fed and gutloaded insects will have enhanced vitamin and mineral content, including things like vitamin A if these are provided in the diet or gutload
jamest0o0
Chameleon Enthusiast
Do you copy and paste this into every thread lol?
Swear I just saw this posted somewhere else. Idk. Making me feel crazy now.
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
I’ve read JCS’s book and listened to he and Bill Strand talk about it, and I tend to agree. Vitamin A derivatives are vital in eye health and function, and Chams have very high functioning vision.
It seems to me that they would benefit greatly in evolving the capability of converting carotenoid precursors to vitamin A.
It’s certain large species eat vertebrate prey and gain vitamin A from that, and it’s certainly possible that there are smaller insects endemic to chameleon’s natural range that may also have preformed A and thus they don’t need to convert.
coastal_chameleon
Avid Member
was thinking the same !
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
Don’t base feeling crazy just on this. It’s also likely multi-factorial
This is a quote from the Dendroboard regarding bean beetles.
"From my research out of all 3 common culture foods, black-eyed peas have the least nutritional value per 100grams. Adzuki takes the mid range in nutritional value. But Mung Beans seem to have some more nutritional value (including more Vitamin A, more Calcium, and some other things that I cant remember)."
The snails not being insects but rather mollusks probably have Vitamin A as retinol.
From the USDA 100 gm of smail
| "Vitamin A, RAE | 30 | µg | Calculated" |
Pickle-cham
Chameleon Enthusiast
Chameleons eyes have lots of cone receptors for seeing colour but fewer rod receptors for seeing contrast this is why they are almost blind in the darkI’ve read JCS’s book and listened to he and Bill Strand talk about it, and I tend to agree. Vitamin A derivatives are vital in eye health and function, and Chams have very high functioning vision.
It seems to me that they would benefit greatly in evolving the capability of converting carotenoid precursors to vitamin A.
It’s certain large species eat vertebrate prey and gain vitamin A from that, and it’s certainly possible that there are smaller insects endemic to chameleon’s natural range that may also have preformed A and thus they don’t need to convert.
. Maybe beta-carotene isn't needed by certain chameleons this wouldn't be unusual for predators to be unable to convert pro-vits like cats & minks are known not to be able to. Its certainly one aspect of herpetology husbandry that needs fine tuning and further development. I've been recently researching into this area as I'm concerned that if beta_carotene is in fact not useful to the chameleon could it be displacing a more beneficial carretonoid or putting a strain on there internal organs coping with this in unnatural amounts. I would love to know the nutritional value of tropical dragonfly's & damselfly since they are predators themselves and spend a good majority if there lives preying on small fish with there large compound eyes I'm sure there's lots of usable preformed vits in one of these
If the insects are fed retinol then it should be carried over to the chameleon as long as it's still in the insect when the chameleon eats it obviously....but if the insect can't store any more than it normally needs for eye sight etc, is there going to be any benefit to the chameleon?
Ramrod
Chameleon Enthusiast
Ah, good point
DocZ
Chameleon Enthusiast
I only have the abstract for the 2003 article from Dr Finke, I’ll try to get a full text link at work.
but it seems to show that by increasing calcium and vitamins in the feeder diet, they were able to increase these levels in the feeder in a linear (in most cases) fashion. This suggests to me that they we’re creating an excess Of these vitamins and minerals to what the bugs would normally carry with them
I don’t know if this was long term feeding (days/weeks) or “true gutloading” (feeding Bugs within hours of Assessing nutritional content). If either works, it gives us an avenue to enhance nutritional content of our feeders. It doesn’t answer how well the cham will digest/absorb this enhanced nutrition, but it suggests we can make this enhanced nutrition available
This final question helps me justify (to myself) the benefits of feeder variety. Each feeder will also absorb/enhance differently from our enhanced gutload/feeding and the cham will also digest/benefit from each different feeder in a different way
