UVB lights not needed?

[jortiz9758]

I was doing some surfing around and came across this.
No UVB light needed? Has anybody here gone this route ?

We feel UVB indoor lights are not needed if dragons are fed a proper diet; and supplemented with Vitamin D3. A calcium/D3 supplement, like RepCal can be used in place of the UVB bulb. The dragon still received its needed Vitamin D3, but instead of producing it itself, it is given dietarily."
Source(s):
http://www.dachiu.com/care/abeard.html

 

[isdrake]

That's just bull. I get sad then I see false rumors like that. =( There are as far as I know no studies that shows that added vitamin D can substitute real UVB light.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Varnyard#p/u/7/9rxhuuIcnTA

 

[jortiz9758]

Seemed odd to me too. Dachiu has some really nice dragons also.
Wonder how healthy they are if this is what they practice.

 

[Frito]

i've only seen one study done that showed that D3 via supplements worked and it was done on baby iguana's it was done by a university

they tracked the growth rate of the iguana's kept in 4 conditions
for about a year i think it was

only UVB
no UVB
only D3
both UVB and D3

both UVB and D3 as well as the only UVB group did the best if i recall correctly, they group that only got D3 via diet did do much better than the group that got nothing what so ever, they still did not grow as fast as the groups that were given UVB.

its also worth noting that reptiles can overdose on dietary D3 and the result is liver damage resulting in a shorter life for your beardie, UVB light they can not overdose on because this is the way they were designed by mother nature to produce the vitamin so it only makes sense that if you want the best for you beardie you should give him/her proper UVB light and let the get some good old natural sunlight from time to time as well

 

[vickson420]

The study has never been done in mass with beardies although TRex did attempt someting similar using solar drops and although they did survive they did not thrive(they were adults no one has ever attempted with babies) and I believe tested for only a year which is not enough to truly determine what the long term outcome would be.The theory that diet can replace UVB is possible but the nutriton content,diet and support required to actually maintain a healthy animal would cost a fortune because you would literally have to have 100's of food items over the period of a weeks time to build the proper requirements and even then they would be smaller,bone density would be severely thinned out and chance of injury or illness would increase greatly.They are actually attempting this with Albinos since they cannot have UVB lighting and have failed miserably thus the reason why there are not any currently on the market.

 

[Frito]

yep makes sense, plus iguana's require much much less UVB than beardies do.

another thing about the study they did they made no mention of MBD and generally speaking iguana's age much slower than beardies do because they live twice as long so in my honest opinion their test was flawed because they did not carry it out till they were all in adulthood (would be pretty close to impossible considering how many they had it was something like 100 in total) my guess is that by 3-4 years of age the D3 only group would have started to develop MBD while the majority of the nothing group would have died or had severe MBD and be near death from it