LEOPARD@1 said:
OK.
I like learning from old fashioned research and positive and negative experience...
I always kept a milk cap of regular calcium in my LG's enclosure. I never noticed it use it though so I removed it for 2 weeks continued regular dusting of prey items and re-introduced it today. It went high speed to it and got a dose of calcium.
Where is there evidence that calcium should not be kept in the enclosure if the LG utilized it so quickly after a 2 week absence?
L@1
My background is NOT in Leopard Geckos but you have these bIg wigs like Tremper go on camera and say "dusting is arbitrary, they know what calcium they need from the dish" (paraphrase) and joe collector says NO, NO,NO...It gets confusing. I guess its still up for debate. I guess Im old school then ;-)
L@1
Hi L@1 ~
A very clear explanation of why I no longer recommend that even plain calcium be kept in the enclosure can be found in post #96 following my Leo Care Sheet. Check out posts #22, 48, and 85 as well.
Calcium should be taken
with food for proper absorption. A varied nutritious diet for both feeders and geckos comes first.
A very light dusting of bugs and worms with powdered supplements further corrects the calcium to phosphorus ratio of the prey we feed our geckos. NEED more calcium, less phosphorus.
All the bugs and worms we feed our geckos are much higher in phosphorus than calcium.
Phosphorus interferes with the absorption of calcium. That's why phosphorus-free supplements are best, or at least supplements with very low phosphorus content.
We lightly dust bugs and worms to correct this imbalance. Dusting should not be the "whole" story. Feeding high phosphorus foods to the bugs/worms makes this impossible. That's why it is best to feed bugs and worms a good dry diet plus adding low phosphorus/high calcium veggies (pesticide-free collard greens and dandelion greens).
