Calcium
and birds, Scroll down |
If
your dog or cat is eating a meat based diet, calcium is the most
important mineral to add to the diet (we don't recommend bone meal
or calcium/vitamin D products or calcium and phosphorous products).
This is our most readily absorbed calcium product. |
Calcium
Citramate™
Thorne Research
Each
Capsule Contains:
| Calcium
(as Calcium Citrate Malate) |
160
mg |
| Malic
Acid (Approximately from Calcium Citrate-Malate |
265
mg |
Other ingredients:
Cellulose capsule. May contain one or more of the following hypoallergenic
ingredients to fill space-Leucine, Silicon Dioxide.
90 capsules
Discussion:
Calcium in the most
abundant mineral in the body. Calcium can be very hard to absorb through
the intestinal tract. Because of this, many animals are marginally deficient
in calcium.
Calcium Citramate™
(Citrate-Malate) has demonstrated superb solubility and superior absorption
when compared to other calcium salts. It has approximately six times the
solubility of either calcium citrate or calcium malate individually.
The most common form
of calcium, calcium carbonate has very poor absorbability and alters the
body's acid/base balance.
We believe that, for
many animals, Calcium Citramate™ is the most cost effective and
useful calcium supplement available.
A reasonably optimal
diet should contain a calcium to phosphorus ration of roughly 2 parts
calcium to one part phosphorus. Meats are very high in phosphorus and
very low in calcium. Since many home cooking recipes recommend fairly
high amounts of meat (in general, a good idea for carnivores), there is
no reason to supplement phosphorus. Many of these recipes recommend bone
meal, which fails to take in to account the high phosphorus in the diet.
The result is excess phosphorus in comparison to calcium. The solution
is to simply feed a calcium supplement.
Birds
Birds
often have
low or marginal blood levels of calcium. Vitamin supplements for birds
often have Vitamin D added to the product. Birds are very sensitive
to Vitamin D and can easily develop excessive levels of Vitamin D when
supplemented in the diet. The result is that birds often are diagnosed
with Vitamin D toxicity. Since it is uncommon for birds to have Vitamin
D deficiencies, it is much safer and more appropriate to supplement
birds with a calcium supplement without any Vitamin D added.
Some veterinarians
recommend providing calcium by placing calcium gluconate in the water.
We do not recommend this because the amount of calcium in this product
is very low and birds don't absorb enough calcium from this water based
supplementation. To highlight the small amount of elemental calcium
in calcium gluconate lets look at an example. Calcium gluconate comes
in a 10% solution, which is diluted and placed into the water bowl.
A 10% calcium gluconate solution means that there is 100 mg of calcium
in one milliliter (one milliliter is roughly equivalent to 1 or 2 capsules
or tablets of calcium. But, since elemental calcium only makes up one
tenth of the entire milliliter of calcium gluconate, there is actually
only 10 mg of calcium in that milliliter of calcium gluconate! After
its dilution in the water and then following the poor systemic absorption
(a common problem with all calcium supplements), it is likely that the
average bird is receiving less than 1 mg of calcium daily! This is an
insignificant amount when compared to the amount of calcium naturally
availble in the foods a bird eats each day.
Calcium gluconate
is a far superior calcium supplement for birds.
Which
Animals Need Calcium Supplementation:
- Animals that are
on a muscle meat and organ meat based diet (see our information on how
to easily feed a well balanced fresh food diet to your dog (Feeding
Your Dog) or your cat (Feeding Your Cat)
- Animals that are
on home cooking diets; especially when the animal is a finicky eater
that refuses to eat the entire diet (these animals often end up eating
primarily muscle meats
- Animals on food
trials for allergies
- Animals fed a limited
diet, especially when the diet is almost entirely meats. These animals
should also be fed Canine Basic
Nutrients, olive oil and Super EPA
- Animals on limited
antigen or hypoallergenic home cooked diets
- BIRDS: Most birds
do not receive enough calcium in their diets
- Lactating mammals
Dosage:
Cats
1/4 in each meal
(placed into the food)
Dogs
1/4 for each 15
lbs body weight for each meal (placed into the food)
Birds:
Sprinkle 1/4 capsule
on soft foods (foods that the calcium powder will adhere to), once or
twice daily... this dosage assumes a fair amount of wastage as the foods
are rarely completely consumed.
Reptiles:
Feed by mixing into
there foods, 1/8 to 1/4 capsule on the food twice daily. Snakes that
are eating dead mice, rats or rabbits, can have the calcium capsule
placed into the dead animal and then feeding that animal to the snake.