# bone deformation in terribilis?



## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

Hi!

So I notticed that one of my three terribilis is, I think, slowly having a front leg deformation. Immediatelly when I notticed, I thought about a lack/bad assimilation of calcium. I must say the other two look perfect and doesn't show any strange fact.
A lack for sure it's not, because I was very aware of the fast growing of these frogs and I supplement them very often with herpetal amphib, with a hig dose in calcium, and also feed them very often with woodlices, wich they have also a considerable apport in calcium too.
Then I thought about the lack of UV. They never had UV in the tank, as long as I know many important breeders that they don't use it, but maybe terribilis is a special case.
The frog didn't have this before, I could resume it as a soft arching of the forearm and the fingers on the front legs are staying together. Also a pretty lower pose comparing it to the other ones, as long as, maybe, a general "softness". 
I must add that the frog eats very well and shows a normal behaviour.

Immediatelly, I am providing them with a 2.0 uv spot for several hours a day (I started yesterday) and this frog stays on the focus for the hole time, quite strange because I had to remove one bulb of the terrarium as long as the frogs hided with too bright lights..
What do you think about it? I am exagerating, could be this a normal fact? someone had a similar experience or has some information about it? maybe can be also some other thing?

I add a picture!









here you can appreciate pretty well the arched forearm


any help/opinion will be great!


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## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

no one knows anything? well from today I leave the 2.0 on the hole day through the ventilation stripe. I will make a report of the frog, as long as if she experienceds a recover, it would be a prove of the UV benefits on the frogs!


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

There are a number of different scenarios that result in bone deformation due to disruption of calcium metabolism. Some of these include, too great a ratio of vitamin A (as retinol/retinyl palmitate) to D3, insufficient D3, too great a ratio of vitamin E to D3, a ratio below 1:1 of calcium to phosphorus, or just plain too little calcium. 

Many herps (and at least some anurans as well) if given the opportunity to behaviorally regulate thier exposure to UVB, will engage in basking to elevate circulating D3 levels in the blood. 
The fact that you are offering a lot of isopods doesn't mean much as increased calcium in the diet doesn't mean that the frog can utilize it if there isn't sufficient D3 in the frog to allow it to metabolize the calcium. 

If the frog is consistently basking, then that is an indication that the frog for one reason or another is not meeting it's need for D3. I'm not sure about supplements outside of the US, but within the US, depending on the brand, there can be significant differences between the label and the actual contents and there can even be significant differences between batches. Because of this, many people often use more than one type of supplement to deal with the possible variations. 

Some comments,

Ed


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## goku (Nov 11, 2009)

thanks a lot for your comments!

On the situations that you mention, the ones that look more possible to me are the one of the insufficient D3, related with the lack of UV, and maybe the other about the ratio calcium/phosphorus..in this case I have a question, in wich situation do you think this ratio could be not appropiate?
Thinking about this idea, I have to say that this frog is crazy with the woodlices, it's her absolutelly favourite food and she is "stealing" it many times to the other frogs when I feed them. I could say that this frog eats more much more woodlices than the other two, wich they prefear middle grown crickets...now could this be related with what you where telling about the ratio calcium/phosphorus? Like a kind of too much calcium, you know what I mean? I thought that the excess of calcium was eliminated with the excrements, but maybe I am wrong..maybe I am now saying silly things, but could an excess of calcium made the phosphorus levels decrease and make the deformations appear?
For the supplements, I use both herpetal amphib and dendrocare, maybe a little bit more herpetal but anyway I use both every week.

regards!


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## jeffr (May 15, 2009)

Ed said:


> There are a number of different scenarios that result in bone deformation due to disruption of calcium metabolism. Some of these include, too great a ratio of vitamin A (as retinol/retinyl palmitate) to D3, insufficient D3, too great a ratio of vitamin E to D3, a ratio below 1:1 of calcium to phosphorus, or just plain too little calcium.
> 
> Many herps (and at least some anurans as well) if given the opportunity to behaviorally regulate thier exposure to UVB, will engage in basking to elevate circulating D3 levels in the blood.
> The fact that you are offering a lot of isopods doesn't mean much as increased calcium in the diet doesn't mean that the frog can utilize it if there isn't sufficient D3 in the frog to allow it to metabolize the calcium.
> ...


Ed can frogs get MBD? Thats what it looks like


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

jeffr said:


> Ed can frogs get MBD? Thats what it looks like


Absolutely.. however one has to be aware that there are a lot of different things that present the same symptoms of calcium deficiency and all are called MBD by hobbyists (even though they can have different reasons for occuring). Here is an outdated article I wrote a long time ago (which needs a little correcting) MBD but gives a good feel for the multiple potential problems that are often attributed to MBD.. 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

goku said:


> thanks a lot for your comments!
> 
> On the situations that you mention, the ones that look more possible to me are the one of the insufficient D3, related with the lack of UV, and maybe the other about the ratio calcium/phosphorus..in this case I have a question, in wich situation do you think this ratio could be not appropiate?
> Thinking about this idea, I have to say that this frog is crazy with the woodlices, it's her absolutelly favourite food and she is "stealing" it many times to the other frogs when I feed them. I could say that this frog eats more much more woodlices than the other two, wich they prefear middle grown crickets...now could this be related with what you where telling about the ratio calcium/phosphorus? Like a kind of too much calcium, you know what I mean? I thought that the excess of calcium was eliminated with the excrements, but maybe I am wrong..maybe I am now saying silly things, but could an excess of calcium made the phosphorus levels decrease and make the deformations appear?
> ...


Based on the additional information, I suspect the frog isn't getting enough D3 as it isn't feeding on food items that are dusted with the supplement. You can either dust the isopods or feed the isopods much less frequently to encourage the frog to eat the dusted crickets. 

Ed


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## jeffr (May 15, 2009)

Ed said:


> Absolutely.. however one has to be aware that there are a lot of different things that present the same symptoms of calcium deficiency and all are called MBD by hobbyists (even though they can have different reasons for occuring). Here is an outdated article I wrote a long time ago (which needs a little correcting) MBD but gives a good feel for the multiple potential problems that are often attributed to MBD..
> 
> Ed


I didn't know that. I used to breed chameleons and MBD was popular for them. I guess due to rapid growth.

Interesting article. I didn't know too much vitamin A can cause MBD as well.

Another potential cause of MBD is over supplementation of Vitamin A. Vitamin A competes with vitamin D3 for absorption in the digestive tract in reptiles and amphibians. If the ratio of vitamin A to vitamin D3 is greater than 10 to 1 then the animal may not be absorbing sufficient oral vitamin D3 to permit normal bone formation

Based on this paragraph would mixing suppliments where one would contain D3 and the other Vit A cause the 2 to combat each other leading to problems?

To the OP if I am hijacking your thread I apologize


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

jeffr said:


> I didn't know that. I used to breed chameleons and MBD was popular for them. I guess due to rapid growth.


Hi Jeff,

The problem is that the symptoms of all of those potential causes look pretty much the same which results in most people calling it "MBD" which is actually one of a complex of nutritional diseases. There is also a fair bit of voodoo nutrition in the chameleon hobby... 

When looking at a supplement one has to look at the actual levels of retinly palmitate/retiniol and not what is reported on the label as vitamin A activity. The reason you have to look at the retinyl palmitate is because any beta carotene in the supplement is a counted as vitamin A activity but beta carotene does not compete for uptake with D3 and/or E. 

When looking at competition for uptake, the vitamins have to be fed in the same meal. If the supplements are used on the different days (or once enough time has passed to allow for a decent seperation in the digestive tract) then there is no competition for uptake. 

If you start mixing supplements then depending on what you are mixing together, it is possible to exceed the recommended ratios which causes conditional deficiencies of those vitamins. As a ball park, one should try to stay in the range of 10:1:0.1 of A (as retinyl palmiate to D3 to E. Keep in mind that beta carotene does not play any role in this ratio... 

As a further complication, calcium has a very narrow zone of safe tolerance and levels outside of that range can cause problems. Too much can lead to deficiencies in other needed nutrients like zinc and in combination with a high fat diet, can form insoluble calcium soaps in the digestive tract. As the fat soluble vitamins need some level of lipids for uptake, this can also cause problems with the animals. 

As an even further complication, there is pretty good evidence that beta carotene by itself is not really a suitable source of provitamin A for anurans. Alternative carotenoids should be supplied to the frogs (and the tadpoles as they use a different source of vitamin A)... There is an article on this in the next Leaf Litter (which should be out relatively shortly) so I'm not going to go into that too much here (to encourage those interested to get copies of Leaf Litter).

Hope that helps,

Ed


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## jeffr (May 15, 2009)

Great info, Thanks a lot Ed


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