The Reason Why We Have Pet Vitamin Supplements

The main reason why we as reptile and exotic animal enthusiasts purchase vitamin supplements for our animals on a regular basis is simple. The pet industry came up with a brilliant idea to increase their market share. Instead of going through the trouble to raise truly nutritious insects or prey items for our exotics to thrive upon, they decided they could make more money by mass producing crickets, meal worms, and waxworms that require a vitamin supplement to be effective staple diets.

Instead of fixing the problem, we have decided to treat the symptoms by developing nutritional supplements rather than imitating our exotics diets in the wild as closely as possible. For example, exactly how often do you think that leopard geckos in the Afghanistan mountain ranges actually eat the crickets like the ones we buy for them at the pet store. If you guessed never, then you are right on the money. The same can be said for wax worms or meal worms. We have failed to provide them with the diet that they had grown independent on for their nutritional needs, and have lazily replaced it with a nutritionally inferior substitute.

It could be argued that the exception to this alarming trend are snakes. For the most part, they seem to thrive in captivity on a diet of rodents, most in part because of rodents make up a huge part of their diet in the wild. I do not feel that it is a coincidence that they eat their natural prey, and do not require supplements. Even so, some might reject a diet of pure rodents because of their affinity for lizards and other small reptiles and amphibians.