Advice regarding calcium carbonate.

Spannerz

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Sep 10, 2014
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56
Hi,

I'm hoping one of you could offer some advice. I read on most forums and care information that Nutrobal is essential for supplementing calcium and vitamins and alternatives are also suitable which contain calcium carbonates. My husband works for a company that blends additives for animal feed and has calcium carbonate readily available. This is in powder form so the "sprinkle" method could be used. Would this be advisable, and if so, what additional supplements would be required for the vitamins?

I'm not against purchasing Nutrobal, far from it. But, if it's readily available with a constant supply at no cost and I can bump up the additional vitamins then I would not be against to opting for this.

Thank you in advance for any advice and suggestions.

:)
 

Tom

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Feed the right diet and you don't need any supplementation. Accomplish that is pretty difficult for most people, and measuring whether you are accomplishing that is exceedingly difficult. How often and how much I supplement depends on the species, age and sex of the tortoise. Young growing giant species (sulcatas) get more. Egg laying females of any species get more. Adult males get less. Can you tell us what species, age and sex tortoise you are wanting to supplement?

The plain calcium carbonate should work perfectly for you. Any commercial reptile vitamin supplement should be safe to use once a week or so. I've used Repashy, Rep-Cal brands vitamins, and the ZooMed stuff. All work fine, and all my tortoises would probably be fine if I didn't use them at all too.
 

Spannerz

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Thank you for your rapid and informative reply Tom.

After much consideration I think we have decided on getting a Horsfield and the breeder has advised they are approaching a year old, all feeding well with a supplemented diet. If I was to go down the route of removing supplements from their diet would this cause them any problems or deficiencies if they are now used to having them in their diet?

Just to add, we do not currently know the sex of the tortoise. We are due to collect it hopefully on October 3rd.
 

Tom

The Dog Trainer
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Thank you for your rapid and informative reply Tom.

After much consideration I think we have decided on getting a Horsfield and the breeder has advised they are approaching a year old, all feeding well with a supplemented diet. If I was to go down the route of removing supplements from their diet would this cause them any problems or deficiencies if they are now used to having them in their diet?

Just to add, we do not currently know the sex of the tortoise. We are due to collect it hopefully on October 3rd.

For a growing baby horsfield on a high fiber weedy diet, I would sprinkle some calcium once or twice a week. On grocery store greens I would sprinkle a small amount three times a week I would taper down to once a week as they hit the 4-5" mark. Adult females would continue on once or twice a week during egg production times, and adult males really don't need any supplementation with a decent diet.

These are just my preferences and my best guess at what I think is enough based on what I feed and how I house them. I think these guidelines would serve most people well. A little more or a little less will most likely be fine too.
 

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