Please recommend snake vitamin supplement

I'm looking for a vitamin supplement for snakes (Candoia Fiji Boas).

They normally eat whole geckos supplemented with human-grade chicken portions (mostly wing portions, with skin and bones), weekly.

Occasionally I run out of geckos, and I wonder if anyone can recommend a vitamin supplement I can use (or reassure me that I don't need one), if I have to feed only chicken portions for a few weeks?

I'm in Fiji, don't have access to specially bred feeder animals, or regular access to herp suppliers, but a friend is coming to the USA next week and can buy what I need if I can direct him.

Any suggestions really welcome.
Thanks

Any Carnivourous Reptile vitamin Supplement will suffice for the purpose of supplementation for snakes. To be honest, no one can really say that one supplement is better than another without performing nutritional feeding trials followed by scientific analysis of the data obtained. Given that most of us cannot do this at home the benefits of one supplement over another are strictly a matter of opinion.

You will encounter many different opinions concerning the various supplement brands available. Remember, they are only opinions. I personally use Rep-Cal. I would recommend using their Calcium/Vitamin D3 Powder (pink label) and their Amino acid supplement (blue Label) since that you are working with a carnivore. Given that the metabolic rate of snakes is considerably slower than that of other squamate's I would recommend that you only supplement your snakes once every 1 to 2 weeks. You can easily overdose reptiles and amphibians on multivitamin supplements (especially snakes) and over supplementation can be very harmful to your pet. As long as your pet readily consumes whole vertebrate prey that has been gut loaded, I would only use enough supplement to dust the exterior of the prey items body and no more. This will help alleviate such risks while providing empirical supplementation to your pet. If the prey items you feed are not gut loaded, I would recommend purchasing a holding tank for at home use so that you can begin gut loading your own prey items. This is really the safest way to ensure adequate nutrition for your pet, in addition to the use of multivitamin supplements described herein.

The geckos normally gut load themselves on moths around the lamps on my ceiling, so no problems there - it's the gecko-free weeks I'm worried about. I'll take your recommendations on board and try and pick up some supplements for those times. I completely understand the need not to overdose.

Thanks again

I can definitely relate to your predicament. I lived in Grenada for 3 years during my veterinary training which is a second/third world country that I imagine to be quite comparable to the Fiji Islands. I agree with you in that it can be very difficult to come accross the resources required to provide adequate herp care while living in these areas, but resourcefulness can do wonders on that front and no less I have had great success in doing so as I imagine you have.

In general, Carnivorous reptiles (like snakes) require 25-60% of their Metabolic Energy (in kcal's) from dry matter to be composed of animal protein, 30-60% fat, <10% Carbohydrate and <10% Fiber.

In general, nutritional supplements ARE ONLY supplements. These only provide vitamins, minerals and limited amino acids at best. Nutritional supplementation IS NOT a substitute for feeding. Your animals will develop severe side effects from supplementation if they are not feeding properly. I only recommend that you supplent, while your animals are feeding. If they go off feed, let them be off feed until feeding resumes. Adding additional supplements during this time may offset their physiologic equilibrium and may cause more harm than good. Supplements should only be used with food, not as a substitute for food.

I would still recommend that you create a separate holding tank to gut load your geckos. As of right now, if your geckos are eating wild moths, they are deffinitely not gut loaded. Feeding insects is not the same as gut loading. gut loading is where you supplement the food being fed to prey items. This ensures that the prey items contain adequate nutrition for the predators that will eat them later. I think its great that the Gecko's are eating moths, but what are the moths eating? Do you know? I don't! Therefore we cannot say the moths are gut loaded, because for all you know the moths have been eating card board with no nutrition value what so ever.

Though I definitely think you are doing the best with what you have, I would still recommend capturing some of those while geckos and maintaining them in captivity so that you can gut load the insects being fed to the geckos, being fed to the snakes. Otherwise you have no way of knowing whether or not you are providing them adequate nutrition and other problems may occur as a result.

For some, going off feed may be a normal response to the stress of captivity, while in others, it may suggest something is wrong. Most of these problems are husbandry related as I am sure you know, so with that, I would start there. If the snakes are becoming so emaciated that nutrition is a concern, they need to be released into the wild (if wild caught) or hospitalized (if captive bred). Medically speaking, patients off feed who begin wasting fall into the category of are critical patients that may require hospitalization and total parenteral nutrition. This may, or may not be available to you, which based on my personal island experience is likely not an option for you.

Anyways I just wanted to clarify my previous statement so that you don't encounter problems using supplementation as a food replacer.The two are simply not equivical.

Thanks again for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive reply. I lived in Honduras before coming to Fiji, but never kept the Boas I saw there. Keeping snakes here in their native habitat is significantly easier in some ways (temp and humidity considerations are a doddle, and the snakes themselves are pretty tough survivors) but food supplies vary, and of course veterinary advice is tougher to get.

I'll think about the practicalities of keeping geckos long enough to gut load, but then I hit the problem of what to feed the geckos.... The ones I catch around the house are eating moths that fly in from the garden, the larger tree geckos are caught in the bushes by local kids, and are eating god knows what...

My snakes haven't been going off feed (except in the colder months), and don't show any symptoms of deficiency, so I presume the geckos they've been eating for 4 years have so far been adequate. It's just that they are now out-growing the geckos, and I don't have a supply of clean rats or mice. At present they are getting a weekly (large) gecko plus one or two chicken portions to supply extra muscle, bone and skin, but no organs.

I'm concerned that occasionally when I run short of geckos I have to feed them chicken only, and this may start to cause deficiencies.

I started on this train of thought when I read a thread (that I now cannot find) about someone who was feeding gutted rats so as to avoid intestinal parasites, supplemented with some form of capsule inside the body cavity to replace the nutrients thus removed. I was thinking that I could put something similar inside the chicken portions. Kind of "gut loading" chicken wings I guess.

I've been reading around, and someone suggested that an occasional pellet of dry puppy food may supply vitamins and proteins. I don't want to go off into crackpot ideas, but this seems like it may not be TOO stupid, if only done occasionally. However I want to be sure about Vitamin D3 and retinol levels, which I understand can be toxic.

I have someone in the USA right now, and I have sent him your Rep Cal recommendations, but these do sound more directed at insectivorous lizards, and I'm not sure I can imagine my snakes going for a powder-coated gecko. Any ideas for anything I can put inside food?

Thanks again

I do apologize, I misunderstood your current situation to some degree and now have a much better idea concerning the problems you are dealing with. As long as your snakes have an ideal body condition score (meaning adequate muscling, Fat and hydration status) you need not worry about the onset of a nutritional deficiency if they are eating whole prey items at least once every 2-3 weeks.

An adult snake with a healthy Body condition score can be left for up to 4 weeks in warm weather, without detriment to its metabolic health, provided the snake is healthy to begin with.

Neonates should not be allowed to fast in this manner as their nutrient reserves are naturally deficient given their age.

Its never a bad idea to supplement your herps, but understand that it is very hard to develop a nutritional deficiency when you are feeding a snake whole prey items. The only way this would be possible is if the prey items fed were deficient, or if you were forced to feed a food item other than whole prey for an extended period of time (more than a month). Given that you are feeding wild Gecko's each of which has a naturally variable diet given that they are wild, I don't think that you have cause for concern relative to the development of a nutritional deficit s long as you are not feeding items like chicken for 1-2 feeings in a row for any duration of time. Instead I would be much more concerned about Parasites!

In regards to feeding Gutted Rats; this would result in a nutritional deficit for sure!!! The Vitamin B complex vitamins, Vitamin K and many other nutrients are synthesized almost exclusively by the natural gut flora present within the animals GI tract. Gutting the prey would decrease the risk of contracting "SOME" intestinal parasites however, it would not protect your pets against them all, given that many GI parasites can also inhabit other tissues. Removing the GI tract from prey removes vitamin B complex vitamins and vitamin K that have been compartmentalized within the prey items intestinal tract. Over time this would deplete vitamin B complex and vitamin K resulting in bleeding disorders from vitamin K deficiency and possibly anemia due to vitamin B deficiency, both of which are very serious and potentially fatal to your pet. Other vitamins and minerals are affected by removing GI contents, but vitamins B & K are the two biggest players that will cause the most damage first!!!


A much safer alternative to feeding prey with their GI contents removed (from your pets perspective) would be to feed items that are free of parasites all together. This may not be possible for you and this something that you need to consider while maintaining these animals in your home. Especially given the risks associated with many of these parasites relative to human health. In addition, you are living on a tropical island where vector born diseases are highly prevalent and should you become infected, seeking medical treatment may not be an available option for you given your location.

Since you stated that you occasionally run out of food, feeding items such as boneless chicken (or even chicken with bones for example) can pose this same problem and the question now becomes; what is the longest duration of time that you have experienced a shortage of gecko's for your snakes? This is what will determine if you will be at risk for the development of a nutrient deficiency.

Powder supplements are easiest for the supplementation of lizards, but supplements are not formulated relative to animal species (regardless of what the label says). Instead supplements are formulated for dietary profiles such as omnivors, carnivores (which are nutritionally similar to insectivores) and herbivores. Though powdered supplements can be dusted onto prey, you are correct, this may not be pallatable to a snake. Given this, you can mix the power into an emulsion with water and inject it into killed prey items. This can be offered as a supplement, but this is also why I mentioned this risk of overdosing in my last post.

When we dust a reptile, we are actually administering an empirical (or shot gun) dose of supplement that exceeds the vitamin and mineral requirements of the animal. If we begin injecting supplements it can become very easy to deliver an overdosing amount of supplement to the prey and consequently the snake.

There is a difference between administering a supplement orally, where the body can naturally void excess amounts of the supplement and injecting the supplement were the body does not have the option, or ability to void excess amounts of supplement without first negotiating biological activity, resulting in toxicity.

I say this because, if you decide to inject pre-killed prey with supplement, you much be very sure that you are using only small amounts relative to what you would use to dust a prey item, and the duration of administration must be prolonged relative to the duration one would use if dusting prey. This will protect against the risk of overdosing prey and consequently your pet.

Vitamin D3 can be toxic and if your pets are exposed to natural sunlight at least 6-8 hours a day you have no need to supplement vitamin D3. Retinol is the animal form of vitamin A and this can be toxic as can vitamn D3 if overdosed. An easy way to supplement vitamin A without the risk of overdose is by offering vitamin A from Beta carotine, which is what many suplements use as opposed to animal derived retinol.

The supplements I recommended can be used with snakes, though as you stated administration can pose a challenge. Unfortunately, you will be dealing with this challenge regardless given that you wish to supplement snakes. I heave heard of Snake sausages which are a formulated food available through Dr's Foster & Smith online catalog, however, not all animals (especially wild caughts) will readily accept these.

As I stated previously, your best bet in all of this would be to reer your own feeders especially given your location and the limited resources available to you. As for food for the Gecko's, You said you have a friend in the states. You should ask him to send you a cup of meal worms. I have had great success raising meal worms in Grenada where there are no pet supplies available to the public. I brought them to the country myself and began with a cup of 25. By the time I left two years later I had an excess of 4,000 worms with growing colonies maintained in 35 gallon trash cans.They reproduce exponentially every 1 to 2 months, mixing your own food for the worms is easy and cheap and they practically take care of themselves. The work and expense to you is extremely minimal. If this is something you are interested in doing let me know and I will send you the details of the protocol I used to established my feeding program for the Veterinary Student Herpetological Society in Grenada. This is very easy to do even with the regulations of customs and the expense is very minimal. My feeders were left unattended for months while I was away and the populations grew like wildfire regardless.

Thanks!
Lots of information to digest (no pun intended!), will think about all this and see what seems practical for me.

Oh, BTW, Candoia bibroni are nocturnal, and while their enclosure gets plenty of natural light, the smaller males spend most of their days under hides, moving around at night, while the larger females stay up on shaded branches, getting more indirect light exposure.
They do this in the wild as well, so obviously they don't have the same light requirements as many more diurnal snakes (they don't bask at all), but I guess this makes them more dependent on dietary vitamins than many other species.