Supplements.

[Wembley]

So I have read a bunch of articles on supplements for frogs. I currently use a mix of Rep-cal and Herptivite. I usually use it once every 10 days for all my different frogs. Should I be using it more often or is this sufficient and are these good supplements. Your thoughts please.

[McLaura]

I use both of these supplements myself for both my gray tree frog and dart frogs. I dust with calcium one day, vitamins one day, and then an off day, and repeat that cycle. I've read that it can actually limit the effectiveness of the calcium/vitamins to use them together, so that is why I alternate. I'm sure others can chime in as to whether or not that is the right way to do it, but that's how I do it.

[Wembley]

When we had to take are Giant Waxy Monkeys to the vet, Red Leg ewwww (They were wild caught we got excited and forgot to ask :/ ) . He said if you use calcium to often they can develop tumors (or something of that nature). So that is why I only use it the way I do. Mind you he has limited knowledge of frogs, it is hard to find a vet who knows a whole lot about them. Trying to avoid future problems. Vet bills are expensive. Thanks McLaura any thoughts on what the vet said?

[McLaura]

When we had to take are Giant Waxy Monkeys to the vet, Red Leg ewwww (They were wild caught we got excited and forgot to ask :/ ) . He said if you use calcium to often they can develop tumors (or something of that nature). So that is why I only use it the way I do. Mind you he has limited knowledge of frogs, it is hard to find a vet who knows a whole lot about them. Trying to avoid future problems. Vet bills are expensive. Thanks McLaura any thoughts on what the vet said?

I haven't heard that about the tumors, but I am definitely not an expert. I would be interested to hear what others have to say about it, as I know it can be bad to not give them enough supplements, so getting it just right is important.

[John]

I only use supplements regularly for dart frogs, since those poor things only get fruit flies for food. For other frogs, the only supplements they get are the occasional calcium-dusted food item. They do however get a varied diet and whenever I feed with crickets, these are gut-loaded prior to feeding.

For the darts, I started out using herptivite and repcal, but having done a lot of reading and talking with dartfrog enthusiasts, sticking with just those two seems to lead to subtle nutritional deficiencies like raised frequency of SLS in tadpoles. So now I rotate herptivite, repcal, Repashy Calcium+ICB ("Instant Cricket Balance") and Repashy Supermin. Incidentally, I bought those last two from Ron at AlphaProBreeders, one of our sponsors.

[Kurt]

I dust every time I feed, whether its darts, treefrogs, toads, or whatever. I have never heard of calcium causing tumors, as excess calcium would be passed out the vent. Nor have I heard about mixing vitiman powders and calciums together limit there effectiveness. I know its not a good idea to store them together, but I don't see how they could cancel each other out when stuck to a cricket or fruit fly.