# Calculating out ratios, supplmentation, edible flowers.



## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

Just a quick reference for myself, to link up too. 
Rather than repeating it from my phone all the time. 

Nutrition nutrition, oh the complex and diverse topic of nutrition. 

The first step in avoiding Ca imbalance is to be aware of what the foods in your animals diet are providing.

The minerals calcium (Ca) and phosphorous (P) play a major role in proper growth and development of the skeletal system in all reptiles. Calcium and phosphorus must be provided by an iguanas or other reptiles diet diet in the correct levels and ratio. If more phosphorous than calcium is consumed by an iguana then calcium absorption can be impaired and skeletal malformations, poor growth, and muscle disorders can occur, (MBD) Even if a diet contains adequate calcium, excessive phosphorus intake may cause abnormalities, but you can’t completely avoid it, phosphorus is still an important part of an iguanas diet, it is needed to filter out waste, and phosphorus is a mineral that is needed to be worked along side calcium for the bone development growth, and density, Nutritionists recommend that a Ca ratio between 1:1 to 2:1 should be provided by the total diet. 

For this example, which is just a specific example, I will use a large male, weighing in at between 6-kg, who might consume on average a minimal amount of food at 200 300 grams daily. 
You add up all the calcium, then you add up all the phosphorus, (take note of the ratio you get from adding up) then divide those numbers, by the toal number of foods. 

Since I know many of you are using the green iguana society as a nutritional reference for your foods I will use there own nutritional data sheet to calculate out some greens for my own iguana (if say, I was offering different food types daily. 
Food Information Chart

50 grams of turnip greens, 50 grams of dandelion greens, 100 grams of mustard greens 50 grams of rocket, 50grams of watercress 

Lets add up the calcium from that food chart. 
Turnip greens 4.5 phosphorus 1 
Dnadilion 2.8 and phosphorus 1 
Mustard 2.4 phosphorus 1 
Swiss chard 1.8 phosphorus 1 
Watercress 2 phosphorus 1 

4.5 + 2.8 + 2.4 + 1.8 + 2 + 
Add up all the phosphorus 1 + 1 etc = 5 
Then divide by the toal number of foods your ratio is 2.7: 1

Your always going to get a higher calcium count, regardless, but the ratio recommendation is there as a guideline to fit in as much to it as possible, so you could feed in a little bit of fruit or a supplement to offset that balance as much as possible. 

Other things to keep in mind.
Your main aims as discussed are there to be fitted in with the 2:1 ca ratio.
You want to minimise foods with high oxalate content where possible (spinach or chard) or offset the volume with a good multivitamin calcium dust. 
You want to be aware of goitrogens and offset them with high oxalate foods because they are usually a good source of iodeine so that is why I said where possible. 
You want to be aware of phytochemicals (saponins, tannins) 

From this, you can pretty much calculate out your ratios to (protein:fat, carbs to fiber etc) (same principle, dead easy, and you really can't go wrong. 

I personally aim to feed around 6 greens in winter, and 12 in the summer, Its just the volume of food type which will increase or increase, but your ratio, should pretty much remain the same. 

Other thoughts on mine for supplmentation. 
there are many acceptable variables of husbandry practice, and each one, will work for individuals based on their own understanding and experience.

However, supplementation is one of those, that is very sketchy within the community at best. And a quick look at many forums and groups, demonstrates nicely, the supplementation routines which can't even be agreed by people who work within the same companies lol 

So were do we look? 
The key here, is to look at your foods. And to lean them, understand their environmental needs, nutritional needs, and their physiology and behaviour, this is the best place to start. 

Merely because I can't speak fr all feeding routines I can only share some of my own thinking behind my own routine. 

1. Generally speaking, if I was using calcium more than a multivitamin, it could and (has) been argued that ive been under-supplmenting my animals greatly, calcium is not the only thing I would need to be worrying about, (wouldnt it be great if it was that easy!  I see nutrition is like a tall stand of kids lego, knock even one, mineral or vitsmin, the rest will eventually crumble around it the only difference being, how it effects that particular individual or the time scale for when it occurs, how and what should I supplent with? Well it will come down to a great deal many things and varibles such as what your gutloading with, or what your feedif it isn't hard to increase the nutritional values of food items, or in the case of herbivores, all greens are good sources of calcium, if you worked out the ratio (per each feeding) and calculated it, so it sat as close to the 2:1 ratio parameters as possible, effectively adding in a calcium supplment would do much more harm than good if you were to add in a calcium dust on my last example of ratio, nutrion is a whole topic in resold and is fundamentally avery complex area so here is just a specific example of it my thinking and I will try to keep it as simple an easy to understand as possible.

Personally I consider it essential to dust foods daily, much of the thinking is biased towards calcium in common thought, but as It has been said a few times, before, calcium is not the only thing we need to think about.

Anology here (lets take for example goitrogens) though their are many other reasons to suppment regularly this is just a pretty specific example.

Goitrogens are a perfectly natural substance which are harmless in mi-nute quantities, but when you think about it, many of the staple foods we feed are extremely high in them (these foods are often used for gutload too to improve insect nutrtional value) ca ratios so are the occasional foods for that matter too (kale vitamin A etc) so its not really as simple as the staples look after everything, in enough quantities, they can be just as bad as anything else.

The most common one, these substances are well known for,are affecting the thyroid gland as most keepers know, if the thyroid gland is having issues producing hormones it becomes enlarged, it is responsible for the function and production of hormones, goitrogens restrict the iodeine uptake to sustain this, so for a pet that is (fed a staple of 5 high goitrogenic foods a day if you follow most common thought 300g (minimum) including gutloaded insects , every day 365 days a year it is not suprising goiter (hypothyroidism and other related health issues sooner or later are bound to present themselves, so what do you do, the key to our common literature advises sticking within the parameters of the 2:1 ratio and minimising oxolates where possible, (biased towards calcium again) (none simple) even your staple greens carry high amounts of that too and nutritional antagonists! this is where the idea of feeding a variety comes into it, chard just as an example is an occasional green, but it is a very good source of iodeine, the problem with that food is it is also extremely high in oxolates, phytates and other nutritional antagonists

So lets do some maths.
My interpretation of occasional foods can range from once a fortnight, to once every 3 months or less in the case of chard however my guys are likley to see this once a fortnight. 

Which isn't really good when you add up 1 plates of high goitrogenic foods a day, 365 days a year, and only 52 weeks (rounding up) and only once within every two of those weeks to compensate weekly can be used int that time frame within the suggested ratio parameters, (specific example) 24-26 times out of 365 days that is less than 7.12% of the yearly diet, (not suprising health issues are bound to present themselves) (goiter) so you can imagine the next step is for supplmentation, unfortunately calcium, phosphorus, and oxolates are not the only things we need to be worrying about, they are the most common issues which tend to present themselves but not the only things.

Much thought leans towards calcium, but how people plan their diets, depending on brand supplments, interpretation on sprinke, and what they actually supplment with will play a big factor, personally I consider it essential to supplment daily, but what with, and in how much quantity, will also differ depending on my planning, but it is daily.

Some of my own reccomended multivitamins are. 
T-rex iguana dust. 
Nutrobal. 
Vet Arks calcium 
(calcium carbonate) 

Other supplments to consider. 
Verm X (is a product we use for the intestinal health of our iguanas, and for rehabilitation to encourage normal gut flora growth, and for our rehabs, you feed it 3 consecutive days a month, our guys appetites, definately increased when I started using it later on last year, and now I have an army of jurassic pork! 

Alfalfa supplments (if you can't locate fresh) we offer this twice or three times a week. 

Common question. 

Every year, I aim for around 120 different food types, to rotate in as the seasons come in offering different varieties, around 30-40 of those foods are flowers. This year the list consists of. 
Dandilion
Hawkbit
Mustard buds
Mallows
English Daisy
Clover buds
Carnation 
Rose
Hibiscus
Marigold
Petunia
Dahlia 
Crysenthamum
Osteospermum 
Viola 
Pansies 
Nasturtium 
Impatiens
Primrose. 
Fuschia 
Dianthus (pinks) 
Chamomile
Comfrey 
Lavander
Hollyhock 
Gladorlias
Elderberry 
Borage 
Oregano
St Johns wart
30 edible flowers, right there. There are many more varieties, and many come in different colour varieties in themselves to try your iguanas with. For more references to edible flowers, you want to avoid putting in iguana into your searches, you want to look at the tortoise care websites, just avoid the grasses. You can easily from that, compile up a list of flowery edibles. (those 30 are the ones I have thus far fed my guys, the following 10 (will depend, on what I grow or find. tis all about the varieties. Geranium is likley to be one though, my girl loves that 


Id actually be interested in hearing any other thoughts some people might have, on their own routines too.  

Dixon


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## mitsi (Feb 1, 2012)

Was doing a bit of reading on this sort of thing myself, well probably more based around the foods they can eat rather than all the nutrional values as well, but ive also been told that as long as its a safe plant/ food for us its also safe for iggies. Would you agree with this?


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

mitsi said:


> Was doing a bit of reading on this sort of thing myself, well probably more based around the foods they can eat rather than all the nutrional values as well, but ive also been told that as long as its a safe plant/ food for us its also safe for iggies. Would you agree with this?


I would have to say yes, but the answer could arguably be no, look at avocado, it is toxic to birds, causes illness in other smaller mammals and currently at the moment its toxicity in reptiles is still unknown but it probably isn't going to take much to put 2 and 2 together based on what is understood so what I'd say, what they can eat is probably safe for us but not the other way around if that makes sense


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## Shrimps (Mar 20, 2014)

This is great! I have a bearded dragon, but a lot of the dietary "guides" are very similar to the iguana ones. 

I've a few questions that I haven't found favorable answers for yet for just the reasons you describe. The more I read the more some guidelines don't add up with the data. I've a spreadsheet for myself that helps calculate ratios quickly, but some of the finer interactions still escape me. 

First: is the rate that oxalate occurs in veggies and how this interacts with calcium and other nutrients. Aside from being a "given" for the cruciferous greens (that happen to be the most encouraged component to salads) the actual content seems wildly variable. Aside from a few (chard, spinach, parsley) it seems like there is kind of a gamble regarding content and how it shakes out. Even calcium has a wider range of content than food labels would have us believe. How do we judge or guess at content? Somethings are labeled high (or argued such) and in data are typically low (kale) - how do we judge to high? What are the other interactions, considering oxalate can form salts with other elements too? I'm tired of the blanket statement "binds calcium" and how it is used to eliminate food from the diet rather than consider moderation...

Second: What is the current understanding of the role/risks of Vitamin A? I've read a wide range of "facts"... Too much Vit.A from any source is dangerous, proform Vit.A is safe even in high levels and that it can't be overdosed from plants, high levels in some greens (hi again, kale) is bad, proform is converted to preform by the reptile, proform is not converted by reptiles, preform supplements are dangerous, preform supplements are necessary.... What's the best way to look at Vit A and balance it in the diet? 

Finally - and it doesn't apply to iguanas of course - insect prey. The guideline to only dust one meal per day sounds like it will lead to a negative balance... Do you have any thoughts on this? 

Personally, feed small or infrequent amounts of things like spinach for iodine and other things less common in other veggies, as well as color and interest. I try to employ as much variety as my grocery store and lizard will allow to try at the least to avoid the same compounds even if they are similar. I dust plain calcium to all insects, I do to use D3 as what I've read makes me uncomfortable about how we dose it. I have been doing the weekly multivitamin but your post has gotten me thinking.


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## Salazare Slytherin (Oct 21, 2009)

Shrimps said:


> This is great! I have a bearded dragon, but a lot of the dietary "guides" are very similar to the iguana ones.
> 
> I've a few questions that I haven't found favorable answers for yet for just the reasons you describe. The more I read the more some guidelines don't add up with the data. I've a spreadsheet for myself that helps calculate ratios quickly, but some of the finer interactions still escape me.
> 
> ...



Great points here Shrimps, and if I am honest, I actually couldn't answer for sure, but my advice is, simply, get some yearly blood work done, it sort of gives me an idea where I am going wrong with my own diets, and where (if I am slacking) can be improved on, it is simple enough to answer a large part of this in a clinical, lab like setting, as a hobbyist though, the machine for such a thing, your talking a nice few thousand pounds, and I can't afford that :lol2: :whip:


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