Vitamins and such!

[Konbrio]

I was bored and was reading through alot of the caresheets. I noticed for lizards you sprinkle calcium and vitamin powder on there food before serving. Is there anything like this you can do with mice/rats for BP's? Just curious

[decensored]

Yes. If you are feeding F/T you can inject them with a vitamin supplement. Some breeders do this with their females prior and during breeding season. It's not really necessary but you can do it.

ZooMed has their reptavite - you can crush some up, add it to water and inject it to your F/T prey. Vitamins are used more for lizzards and such. A big part of ReptiVite is Calcium and Amino Acids which your BP gets from the muscle tissue and skeleton of a rodent. You really don't need it IMO.

[mpkeelee]

Brian at BHB did a Snakebytes episode about this. The snakes eating rats dusted with vitamins grew at a faster rate than the others. U can search for that thread on here or u can watch the videos on YouTube

[OtterGoRun]

We used to inject vitamins for certain animals at the zoo, but for a ball I'm not sure it's entirely necessary.

[Skiploder]

There have been no valid studies on this. The BHB "study" was a vague claim with no proof to back it up.

Snakes live long and healthy lives in captivity when fed diets not supplemented with vitamins.

With regards to diet and nutrition; the keys are to avoid the tendency to over feed and to also feed a diet appropriate to the species you keep. Not all snakes are rodent eaters in the wild. They become obligate rodent eaters for the convenience of their keeper.

Some species do better on other reptiles, amphibians or birds.

[decensored]

There have been no valid studies on this. The BHB "study" was a vague claim with no proof to back it up.

Snakes live long and healthy lives in captivity when fed diets not supplemented with vitamins.

With regards to diet and nutrition; the keys are to avoid the tendency to over feed and to also feed a diet appropriate to the species you keep. Not all snakes are rodent eaters in the wild. They become obligate rodent eaters for the convenience of their keeper.

Some species do better on other reptiles, amphibians or birds.

This

One thing I noticed about Brian from BHB is that he endorses products that I know don't work very well, or that he doesn't use personally. There's an episode where he talks about how great the zoo med reptibator is great and how its got a really good thermostat system.. Or he was endorsing a brand of substrate for herp eggs stating that its what he thinks is the best product out there but if you watch all his videos where he's dealing with piping hatchings or incubation he uses a different product than what he says.

I like his show but I don't pay any attention when he starts talking about products on the market.

[snakesRkewl]

The best way to a healthy well fed snake is a healthy well fed feeder