# Ed, Super Preen ?



## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Buy Super Preen bird vitamin and mineral supplement at Arcata Pet

Ed, [and others  ]

I've had this one recommended to me by a frogger with 20+ yrs experience.

I'm planning on using it in rotation with the usual Herptivite and Repcal Ca

See any issues?

I havent used Dendrocare in yrs, but I cant say there was a reason for stopping other then the Dendrocare panic that was around a couple years ago....

thanks,


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## Philsuma (Jul 18, 2006)

I know of a large scale frog breeder who swears by it.

I'll be trying it soon as well.


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## zBrinks (Jul 16, 2006)

I've heard of this from a couple different sources as well, and would be curious to hear Ed's take on it as well.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I couldn't find a analysis on line or a breakdown of the ingredients so I can't recommend it either way.... 

The advertisement of it does make me curious as to what constitutes a wide variety of amino acids in a complete supplement. A quick search has it being touted for a wide variety of animals from parrots to gerbils and sugar gliders but I still can't find a breakdown for it. 

Ed


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

I am curious about this as well. Will stop by a store tomorrow and see if I can get an answer. I know some bird folks who might have it or at least know whats i it


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## Manuran (Aug 28, 2007)

Hi All,

I've been using superpreen to supplement my darts for well over 20 years and have always had great luck with it. There was one point where the company producing it closed down and it was not available for some years. I tried several different brands but was never quite as satisfied. A new company started producing it and I am happy again. lol

If needed, I can post the breakdown.


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

A breakdown of ingredients and composition would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,


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## Manuran (Aug 28, 2007)

okay, actually I was trying to avoid this much typing! lol
I should add that I have some animals that are 20 years old that have been given this vit. for most of their lives and they still seem to be okay. In my earlier years in the hobby, I used to tell people to use this as I thought it made a difference. Since I don't have a label from the old bottle, I'm not sure if the formulation is the same. Still, since I started using it again, I have seen no ill effects.

Vitamin A (Vit A palmitate) (I know this might scae some people) 900,000 I.U.
Vit. A (Beta Carotene) 181,600 mcg
Vit. B-1 (Thiamine HCL) 800 mg
Vit. B-2 (Riboflavine) 600 mg
Vit. B-6 (Pyridoxine HCL) 600mg
Vit. B-12 (Cyanocobalamin) 4,000 mcg
Vit. C (Ascorbic acid) 1,800 mg
Vit. D-3 52,000 I.U.
Vit. E (Di-alpha Tocopheryl Acetate) 4,800 I.U.
Vit. K 23.6 mg
Niacinamide 3,000 mg
Pantothenic acid(D-Calcium Pantothenate) 300 mg
Folic acid 18,000 mcg
Rutin 18,000 mcg
Biotin 436 mcg
Choline Bitartrate 5000 mcg
Inositol 2,360 mg
Para Amino Benzoic Acid (PABA) 1,180 mg
Hesperidan Complex 60,000 mcg
Lemon Bioflavonoids 60,000 mcg

Calcium (Calcium Phospate Dibasic) 19,547 mg
Copper (Copper Gluconate) 127 mg
Iodine (Potassium iodide) 36.3 mg
Iron (Ferrous Gluconate) 3,595 mg
Magnesium (Magnesium Oxide) 90.8 mg
Manganese (Manganese Gluconate) 320 mg
Phosphorus (Calcium Phosphate Dibasic 11,350 mg
Potassium (Potassium Chloride) 1,362 mg
Salt (Sodium Chloride) 1,362 mg
Sulfur (Sulfur Flowers) 11,350 mg
Zinc (Zinc Gluconate) 345 mg

Amino Acids:
Alanine 368 mg
Arginine 458 mg
Aspartic acid 644 mg
Cystine 2,763 mg
Glycine 220 mg
Glutamic acid 852 mg
Histidine 5,233 mg
Isoleucine 9,373 mg
Leucine 15,216 mg
Lysine 12,481 mg
Methionine 2,445 mg
Phenylalanine 9,892 mg
Proline 275 mg
Serine 548 mg
Threonine 8,598 mg
Tryptopan 2,544 mg
Tyrosine 6,675 mg
Valine 9,617 mg

Plus:
Whole eggs
Egg yolk powder (source of Xanthophyll)
Alfalfa leaf
Yeast
Sea Kelp
Defatted liver
Capsicum
Soy Protein Isolate
Anise
Lecithin
Fruit sugar
Precipitated Silica
Magnesium Stearate


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Gold star for that work!

Ed, want to take a look at that analysis?

Shawn


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

Robb has it listed on the "Care & Maintenance" page on his web site - 
Welcome to Robbster.com Dart Frogs Page

Page down to the FOOD section.


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

I can tell you with absolute certainty, from someone who has no idea about any of this, that by the looks of the ingredients this stuff is either really good, really bad, or somewhere in between....


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## Jayson745 (Dec 13, 2006)

this rep crap makes me want to stop posting period. I got bad rep for trying to be funny!?!?!? Didn't give anyone bad advice(or any advice), nor was I mean to anyone, but my previous post has me red.

Why? explanation=

"not contributing......"



Humor isn't a contribution? People aren't here to communicate and maybe laugh a little? Don't find me funny, fine, don't laugh, theres no need for reprimands...


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## frogparty (Dec 27, 2007)

Dude don't pay attention to it if you don't want to . its just a little block of color. We are just trying to figure out options to optimize the health of our little buddies here.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

The ratio of A (as retinyl palmitate) to D3 to E is really outside of the ratios that are considered safe. The ratio of A to D3 is about 17 to 1 while the ratio of A to E is about 187 to 1. This means that in the digestive tract, the A will outcompete the D3 and E for uptake which can readily result in hypovitaminosis of these vitamins in the frogs. This is a real problem with a number of supplements. 

The ratios should be as close to 10 to 1 to 0.1 (or for those that don't like decimel places 100 to 10 to 1) of A (as retinol or retinyl) to D3 to E otherwise as I noted above insuficiencies can result from the use of the supplement. 

As for whether the levels themselves are too high, this would require a lot of money to perform the analysis as you would have to figure out how much was sticking to the ffs or other feeder insects and calculate out the dosage. 

In addition as with other complete supplements, the fat soluble vitamins (A, D3 and E) catalyze thier own oxidation when combined in mixed powder meaning that these parts of the supplement break down more quickly requiring a real attention to the time since manufacture and opening. You want to use the freshest supplement and discard as close to six months from opening as possible. 

One of the recommendations that is also starting to come forward is that it is better to use more than one supplement as an older published analysis showed that there can be significant differences between the analysis reported on the label and what is actually in the supplement.... 
There hasn't been an independent analysis in a number of years as legal action was threatened against the researchers if they did it again and published the results by name of the supplement. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Jayson745 said:


> Humor isn't a contribution? People aren't here to communicate and maybe laugh a little? Don't find me funny, fine, don't laugh, theres no need for reprimands...


I laughed if that is any consolation. 

Ed


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## Ontariofrogger1973 (Oct 18, 2008)

lol i thought it was funny too. some peps just need to get the sticks out of their... 

on topic, im not sure if this pertains to frogs, but i know in general you look for the L amino acids. and looks like it contains the essentail amino acids. i think.


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

So Ed, does all that mean that the Super Preen should not be used at all? Or it would be good to use as part of a rotation with the other more usual dusting powders? Or basically the jury is still out?


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## sports_doc (Nov 15, 2004)

Jayson745 said:


> I can tell you with absolute certainty, from someone who has no idea about any of this, that by the looks of the ingredients this stuff is either really good, really bad, or somewhere in between....


Jason,

I'm going to say this one time. So as not to clutter my thread further.
It is a fine line between 'humor' and disrespect.

While your post wasnt likely meant to be anything more then fun...it obviously bothered someone...and lead to your rant....and further posts from others defending your position [which can be by pm]...and now my post. Was all that necessary? In the past, mods would simply delete all those posts btw, to clean up a thread.

So, I ask...why hit the send button at all if you are posting in a thread that is clearly looking to answer a specific question about a product??

-------------------------
Ed,
Thanks for the clarification. 
I think we as a group should take a look at a half dozen supplements that we can use that do seem to have a reasonable ratio, and post them in a Sticky. Anyone up for it?

There are a dozen+ powdered bird supplements, and 1/2 dozen more reptile supplements, not to leave out the old standby Herptivite and Dendrocare.

Would be nice to have a priority list of supplements. Not necessarily recommended but by inclusion in a 'list' they can be considered reasonable and used in rotations.

Thanks,


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## LittleDip (May 20, 2007)

I am very interested in this.. 
I am just starting out with a new supplement schedule for my frogs and bought the Dendrocare, Herptiviteand Rep-Cal and will rotate the supplements, but if there is something else out there that is more beneficial I am very interested.


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## Corpus Callosum (Apr 7, 2007)

Repcal and Herptivite don't have vitamin A in the form of retinol, and even though Dendrocare and Herpetal amphib do, they don't have the proper ratios either. Repashy Calcium ICB looks promising as it has the correct ratios with respect to vitamin A. I think I'm going to test some of that, but in the meantime I have been using straight vitamin A retinyl palmitate in my regimen (also not in the correct ratio, but better than having vitamin A deficient frogs).


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## builder74 (Mar 26, 2006)

How do they come up with what darts need in the dust? It seems like they should just take what they eat in the wild and break it down. I know there's a lot more to it but what do they really need and what is just filler when we look at all the diff dusts out there.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

builder74 said:


> How do they come up with what darts need in the dust? It seems like they should just take what they eat in the wild and break it down. I know there's a lot more to it but what do they really need and what is just filler when we look at all the diff dusts out there.


The problem with this is that there is a wide variety of invertebrates on which the frogs feed and the frogs may preferentially feed on insects that have a greater caloric content or availability at that time. This causes a wide variation of the nutrients at that time and does not take into account variations that occur due ingested or adhered soil. As a further complication many of the recorded diets of these frogs may be incomplete as the contents of the digestive tracts were not fixed immediately but when they got back to camp or are due to sampling from museum specimens. This can cause a wide underreporting of soft bodied invertebrates as they may have been digested before they could be documented. 

What we do know is that they respond well to the data for nutrient requirements developed for domestic animals (this has been true for virtually all terrestrial vertebrates). Historically supplements used retinol but the levels were too high and resulted in big problem with hypovitaminosis of D3 which was referred to in the hobby slang as MBD (which is actually multiple issues under the same name). The resulting backlash caused the manufacturers to switch to 100 % beta carotene in most of the supplements used in the USA... as these supplements were used with captive herps in collections that included recorded necropsies and documented medical trends, issues were noted particularly with bufonids that were showing issues with hypovitaminosis of A. One of the theories at this time is that the toads do not readily convert beta carotene to retinol due some other animals. When combined with the other research showing insufficiency of retinol can cause problems with anuran embryo development or deformations in developing metamophs the indication is that many anuran may have issues with this conversion. This is in part probably an artifact of how we keep the frogs as unlike in the wild, most of the collections are optimized to be in breeding condition all of the time which prevents the frogs from having periods of reproductive rest which would permit the frogs to reaquire and sequester the required nutrients (even if they do not convert them efficiently they would have time to meet those needs). In addition, the frogs are probably not breeding as often as they do in captivity which also places stress on the frogs. 


Ed


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## builder74 (Mar 26, 2006)

Thanks Ed !!! Great answer thanks for taking the time to respond.My last question is do we know what a fruit fly contains as far a nutrients and if there are any vitiamins non-dusted.thanks


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

A rough analysis can be found here http://www.nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf 

There have since been a couple of articles that further analyzed them but I can't lay my hands on them at the moment.. FFs are considered to be a "high" quality prey as opposed to say ant due to preferences shown in some herps and thier caloric content. 

As to liquid supplements.. I'm not sure what you are looking for with a liquid supplement.... 

Ed


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## builder74 (Mar 26, 2006)

Thanks !!that's was what I was looking for.


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

Just got my current issue of the Leaf Litter magazine off the TWI site. And lo & behold one of the articles in the magazine is "Choosing a Vitamin Supplement" by Ed Kowalski. What GREAT timing


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

Keep your eyes posted for the future article on retinol and carotenoids. 

Ed


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