Vet's opinion on dusting feeders

[Busterboy]

Hello everyone,

I recently took a chameleon that I rescued to the vet to get the proper medications and food for her to help her gain strength.

Me and the vet had a convo that went something like this.....

Vet: What kind of lighting do you use? and what do you dust your feeders with?
Me: She is using a 10.0 reptisun right now, but was not using any type of UVB bulb with the previous owner. I dust the feeders with calcium with no D3 every other day, calcium with D3 three times a month, and multivitamins three times a month. But the previous owner only used calcium every other day.
Vet: Ahhh i see, yes I can tell. She seems to appear to have Metabolic Bone Disease and it's good that she is using the UVB bulb now. This will help here regain some strength and stop the metabolic bone disease from spreading. Make sure that she has UVB though, because if the UVB lighting isnt present, she will just poo out the supplements that you dust your feeders with and it will be pointless to feed her the dusted feeders.

Now my question is... Do leopard geckos really use the supplements that we dust our feeders with? Or do they just poo it out, since a UVB bulb isn't required for them?

All answers are welcome. I am asking because I don't know, so don't be mean about it.

 

[OnlineGeckos]

Chameleons are a diurnal specie, completely different from crepuscular leopard geckos. Diurnal species require UVB, they have to bask under full spectrum of light during the day. Where as leopard geckos get very limited exposure to UVB, and when they do, it's during fading light at dusk & dawn.

 

[Busterboy]

Thanks for the reply

 

[indyana]

Leopard geckos are much better at getting D3 from their food. There have been a few articles written suggesting that they can benefit from low levels of UVA/UVB though, sort of like offering them the option to metabolize more D3.