Uvb and D3

[Diver]

So, if everyone has now calmed down.... While not a party to the recent heated arguments, I have seen incorrect advice being given lately which could do with being addressed and the way to address it is to try and give the correct information rather than attacking the person involved as that just causes bad feeling and an argumentative stance which it not conducive to a learning experience. I'd like to think that everyone on here is receptive to new information even if it changes what they thought they knew, I certainly am because it from this that we learn more about the subject that many are clearly passionate about. Opinions certainly vary, but opinions are not facts so perhaps we can straighten out a few scientifically verifiable facts that we can hopefully all agree on regarding this subject.

To reiterate some of the comments from Dr. Ivan Alfonso on this thread: http://www.frogforum.net/showthread.php?t=24225

Frogs need calcium. Without it they will suffer from a variety of maladies and will ultimately die. In the wild they would obtain this from a varied diet but in captivity with the most freely available feeders such as crickets, calcium is lacking and therefore must be supplemented, an easy task as feeders can be dusted with calcium and the animal cannot overdose so plenty can be given to ensure a sufficient amount.
However, all the calcium in the world is ineffective unless the animal has vitamin d3 with which to process the calcium. In the wild this is obtained from sunlight. In captivity the caged animal is deprived of natural sunlight so two methods exist to supply the required d3, one is oral supplementation, the other is provision of UVB from artificial lighting.
The problem with oral supplementation is threefold. Firstly, we don't know what a correct dose is. Even if we did there is no way of administering the correct dose via dusting of feeders. Secondly, it is possible to overdose so therefore harm the animal we are trying to keep healthy. Finally, it has now been proven the the oral (and unnatural) administering of d3 is far less efficient than originally thought. The consequence of all this is that it's impossible to give a frog the correct dose of d3 orally.
UVB lighting has become by far the preferred way to provide d3 to frogs worldwide in zoos, institutions, breeding facilities and by hobbyists worldwide. The reason being is that it is the natural way in which the process occurs in the wild, it is far more efficient than oral supplementation and (as now has been proven), frogs can detect UVB through their eyes and so can regulate the amount of UVB they are exposed to. This means the correct amount can be obtained without overdose exactly as the frog would in the wild by varying their exposure to sunlight.
Of the two methods it is clear, and scientifically proven, than UVB lighting is preferable to oral supplementation for the provision of vitamin d3. Added to this is the huge weight of anecdotal evidence showing the other benefits to animals that have provided with UVB lighting including colouration, display of natural activity, breeding success and overall health. We do also see a lot of threads on here with often young frogs suffering from a variety of undiagnosed health issues, there is a very good chance that many of these have been been cause by preventable deficiencies of calcium/d3.
There are now many scientific papers available to help people decide on the UVB/d3 issue, I don't have time to trawl for them all but obviously people can do their own research. Here's a small selection:

This one is particularly interesting as it shows that frogs provided with oral d3 still developed MBD showing it's inefficiency:

http://www.amphibianark.org/pdf/Husb...quirements.pdf

This one shows oral supplementation as ineffective compared to UVB in an animal that is very resistant to UVB:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20206712

This one demonstrates that frogs are able to detect UVB (as well as the inefficiencies of oral supplementation)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20206712

This is a good read too:

http://www.jzar.org/jzar/article/view/70/38


With all the obvious proven and anecdotal reasons to provide UVB along with adequate cover for frogs it's difficult to understand why it should not be a standard part of modern husbandry, there seems no good reason to withhold it. The reasons given on the previous thread of decreased ventilation or inadequate plant growth are of course not reasons at all with the availability of compact bulbs, t5 and t8 tubes and even miniature fans. When you know you can improve the well-being of your charges by providing UVB even on a 'just in case' basis, is it really not worth providing just for the cost of a bulb?