Snake Discovery Video on Treating Lizards with Eye Infections

[Malum Argenteum]

That is indeed way overbroad. Absolutely do not add Vitamin A to the diets of rodent eating reptiles without an identified (tested) deficiency. Rodents already contain too much Vitamin A. Actually, routine supplementation of any vitamin or mineral in rodent prey diets is inadvisable without a tested deficiency. More is patently not better.

Vitamin supplementation always needs to be tailored to the needs of the species at issue, and the diet of that species.

• Some herp species should receive D3 through UVB; others do well on dietary intake of D3
• Some diets contain enough A (and/or D, and/or calcium); adding more is contraindicated
• Some species can convert carotenoids to Vitamin A; some cannot; some do but not efficiently
• Some diets require calcium supplementation; of those, some are best supplemented with calcium carbonate (insects), some with calcium phosphate (herbivores)
• and so on

All claims to the effect that 'all captive reptiles should have X added to their diet' are incorrect, not based in fact, and dangerous.

Specific to the Vitamin A issue: back in the 80s, lots of turtles were incorrectly dosed with Vitamin A, leading to losses, which led to a bandwagon jumping movement (these still happen, with the same predictable effects) to use only beta carotene for Vitamin A in herps, which led to (and still leads to, with legacy supplement products) losses in species (amphibians are the ones I'm familiar with) that can't convert carotenoids.