I always tell all of my customers, a good variety of nutritious live foods is essential in the rearing of healthy reptiles in captivity. 

This will ensure a good mix of micro and macro nutrients with a good variety of minerals and vitamins in 'whole foods' form, not from synthesized processes, which never can equal what nature provides in organic 'live foods'.

Excellent nutrition and responsible husbandry must be combined to ensure the health of your reptiles. 

You can be feeding the most perfectly balanced diet in existence, but without the optimum temperature gradient, that 'perfect diet' is not able to be properly digested.  

Reptiles are cold blooded animals so they require heat in order to digest their foods. If this temperature requirement is not met the food will simply rot in their gut and not be digested, resulting in elevated uric acid levels, and an acidic blood pH level causing detrimental damage to your reptile.  

Digestion is not only impaired by improper heat requirements, but lack of hydration can also have adverse effects on digestion as well. Water consumption is often overlooked when thinking about digestion, but without proper amounts of water intake the process of digestion can be halted, thus, causing serious damage to your reptiles.

Organically Raised Live Feeders: We've adopted the policy to grow all of our Super worms, Meal worms and Crickets on an organic vegetarian diet of Canadian wheat bran, with carrot, celery, cabbage and apple for moisture, and our 'Premium Custom-Blend Dry Food' formula for additional minerals and vitamins (see our Dry Cricket Food).  

This daily 'organic gut-load' reduces the uric acid levels in our feeders resulting in a much healthier Live Feeder Insect for your herps - Uric acid is now recognized as a major factor for gout, liver and kidney disease in reptiles - (We often hear from people who make their own 'veggie-based' cricket feeds or “gut-loads” and that they have healthier Reptiles compared to using commercial feeds and gut-loads).  

See our SPECIALS - Organically raised Supers, Meals, Crickets, and more.

An example of water intake is through the ingestion of insects.  Insects alone can provide a large amount of water to aid in the hydration of your reptile.  

In their natural habitat the early morning dew that is apparent in many arid lands is yet another method of water consumption, and for the herbivores, they will get much of their hydration from consuming plant material.  

As you can see, besides the obvious rain and access to running water there are many other means in which a reptile can get the moisture it requires.

Reptiles in their natural habitat have learned to adapt to natural ways of maintaining proper hydration.  

However, when housed in captivity the reptiles are not able to resort to most of the methods listed above since they are at the mercy of their keeper to provide them with the proper environment.  

Fast forward to the dry terrarium with glass sides, a screen top and a basking light … Even a desert adapted reptile can quickly become dehydrated and die in an enclosure like this.  

In such a situation it's up to the keeper to provide the moisture to the reptiles, and often, it is in an 'unnatural form' via misting, soaking, a water bowl or a combination of these three methods.  

The point is that a dehydrated reptile cannot assimilate the best of meals so without the proper hydration the absorption of nutrition really suffers.  

This is why Live Foods are so important as they provide much needed hydration.

SPECIALS - Organically raised Supers, Meals, Crickets, and more.

Calcium in your lizard's diet:

Many people believe that there is no such thing as too much calcium in a reptile's diet, especially, when it is through supplementation.  This is definitely not true.  

Calcium in high doses can act as a binder, which inhibits the absorption of essential nutrients such as other essential minerals, as well as vitamins.  In the presence of too much Vitamin D, excess Calcium can calcify the internal organs, liver and kidneys. 

Calcium neutralizes stomach acids, which are necessary for the digestion and absorption of all nutrients. Many drugs have warnings to not take them with an antacid because it can prevent the drug from being absorbed into the system.  

Balance is a major key.  Giving a large dose of calcium all at once is not the same as giving a smaller amount with each feeding.

Phosphorous and its relationship to calcium is also very important.  

It's generally agreed across the vertebrate world, that an inclusion ratio of 2:1 (calcium/phosphorous) is optimal.  This is a common ratio measured in healthy bone analysis of most vertebrates (including humans).  

To err to the high side with calcium is generally much easier to metabolize than a diet that has less than a 2:1 ratio of Calcium to Phosphorius.  Even a 3:1 ratio is metabolized efficiently by most organisms.  

This is why the 'Genuine' ReptiWorm is rated as the best live feeder insect available for reptiles, frogs, birds, fish and turtles being kept as pets in captivity, since it is the only larva/worm to even come near the ideal 2:1 Calcium Phosphorous ratio, water for hydration and protein as well.