Herp Vet says never to feed skinks cat/dog food

[justyna.ewa]

Correct me if I am wrong, but snails in salt are for human consumption. You can get either unsalted or reptile specific canned snails however~

I do get the reptile specific ones. I am pretty sure someone was saying that canned snails should be avoided because of the salt they are preserved in.

[Alioop]

okay.. despite the arguements.. I am glad... as I have been using Wellness chix cat food (recommended from the store I bought him from) as a filler so it binds together, I usually boil chix and put in chopper with collard greens, and mix a tablespoon of cat food.. I also add blueberries or diff fruits.. thought I was doing okay, but after reading this; I should stay away from the chix cat food?, switch to dog food (what kind beef?) and should I not be boiling chix? should I be using lean ground beef instead? I also add calcium supplement 2x week. occasionally a slow cooked scrambled egg

Are you using "chix" to refer to chicken? If so, it would cause a lot less confusion if you could refer to it by its commonly known name (chicken), we've got a lot of old folks on this forum and those poor saps confuse easily.
IF chix means chicken... boiled chicken is fine as a treat, but is not appropriate as a primary protein source. Canned cat food is generally accepted as a good protein staple for young skinks (1yr or less), but it is NOT recommended to feed canned cat food regularly to an adult skink, canned dog food is preferred. As far as what type/brand/flavor of canned dog food you feed- that is really up to you. I personally like to mix it up (really just for my own personal amusement, as the evidence shows that canned pedigree dog food is about the best thing out there to feed as your staple protein), so I feed chicken, beef, lamb, pedigree, alpo, proplan, wellness, blue buffalo... whatever strikes my fancy that day!

[justyna.ewa]

canned pet foods are 80% water. dry pet foods are 10% water. from a purely mathematical point of view, it makes more sense to feed dry food, as it contains more nutrients per weight and volume. i suggest using Hills - they have a type of dry food that only uses natural preservatives such as vitamins.

[Jeff]

canned pet foods are 80% water. dry pet foods are 10% water. from a purely mathematical point of view, it makes more sense to feed dry food, as it contains more nutrients per weight and volume. i suggest using Hills - they have a type of dry food that only uses natural preservatives such as vitamins.

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand the logic there. Water is good for BTS, so I don't understand why high water content would be bad. Is your goal to feed the smallest amount possible? It takes very little wet dog food to feed a BTS. I see the fact that it contains more water to be completely irrelevant.

[justyna.ewa]

canned pet foods are 80% water. dry pet foods are 10% water. from a purely mathematical point of view, it makes more sense to feed dry food, as it contains more nutrients per weight and volume. i suggest using Hills - they have a type of dry food that only uses natural preservatives such as vitamins.

I'm sorry, but I don't really understand the logic there. Water is good for BTS, so I don't understand why high water content would be bad. Is your goal to feed the smallest amount possible? It takes very little wet dog food to feed a BTS. I see the fact that it contains more water to be completely irrelevant.

I don't understand what you don't understand. Dry dog food has less water, ergo it has more protein, vitamins and other nutrients, which means that I can use less of it since it is a more concentrated source of nutrition. I'm not concerned with how much this costs, I just think that by using less of a dog food that is healthier, and by pairing it with veggies, snails and other nutritious goodies, I can provide the highest amount of nutrition without overfeeding. Greens and vegetables have a high water content, and he always has a drinking bowl full of water.
Are you saying it's better to feed something that's less nutritious, but to just feed him a lot of it? That doesn't seem very logical to me. It's the equivalent of saying "lettuce is sort of healthy, but doesn't really contain any vitamins. I does have a lot of water though, so I'll just eat a crap load of it."

[Linnea]

i think you misunderstood eachother on both sides here.
- The cost wasnt meantioned
- when you wrote before, it sounded as if you were pointing out that less water is better, not that you mathematically counted the nutrients

after that, i can put my helpful comment in :>

by this i mean, that if you feed a regular meal it will have the same nutrients, no matter wet or dry from the beginning, yes? so, none of them would theoretically be bad in that manner. so not logical to make two statements when you mean the same xD

now for what i suppose would be bad.

- too many nutrients can actually be bad. thats exactly what overfeeding means healthy is regular, too much is too much.
- a bts would not know how much water to drink to compensate for the dry dog food. as little as you would if you ate a bowl full of dry oats and then have a stomach ache. thats why giving wet dog food is better, in my opinion. and you wouldnt know if your skink have a stomach ache because of this either D:
them being water saving reptiles and all, most dont drink as often as a dog does.

other than that your meal ideas seem great and varied. not saying you cant feed dry dog food either.

[Jeff]

Am I the only one confused? How do you overfeed water? That was your point, wasn't it? Canned food contains more water. So what? I am not even against feeding dry food, I just don't understand why you think water is bad?

[Jeff]

Also, I'm not looking for an argument, I promise! I am just curious about clarification of your views!

[justyna.ewa]

Am I the only one confused? How do you overfeed water? That was your point, wasn't it? Canned food contains more water. So what? I am not even against feeding dry food, I just don't understand why you think water is bad?

I never said "overfeeding" water this bad.
I said that feeding a food that has less nutrients BECAUSE IT HAS MORE WATER PER VOLUME makes less sense than feeding a food that has more nutrients and less water per volume. Because that way he gets more nutrients.
Is that a better explanation?

[justyna.ewa]

i think you misunderstood eachother on both sides here.
- The cost wasnt meantioned
- when you wrote before, it sounded as if you were pointing out that less water is better, not that you mathematically counted the nutrients

after that, i can put my helpful comment in :>

by this i mean, that if you feed a regular meal it will have the same nutrients, no matter wet or dry from the beginning, yes? so, none of them would theoretically be bad in that manner. so not logical to make two statements when you mean the same xD

now for what i suppose would be bad.

- too many nutrients can actually be bad. thats exactly what overfeeding means healthy is regular, too much is too much.
- a bts would not know how much water to drink to compensate for the dry dog food. as little as you would if you ate a bowl full of dry oats and then have a stomach ache. thats why giving wet dog food is better, in my opinion. and you wouldnt know if your skink have a stomach ache because of this either D:
them being water saving reptiles and all, most dont drink as often as a dog does.

other than that your meal ideas seem great and varied. not saying you cant feed dry dog food either.

canned pet foods are 80% water. dry pet foods are 10% water. from a purely mathematical point of view, it makes more sense to feed dry food, as it contains more nutrients per weight and volume.

I still don't understand why what I am saying is not being understood. 1 bite of dry food = 10% water, 90% nutrition. 1 bite of wet food = 80% water, 20% nutrition.
Extra nutrients that the body cannot process just get peed out. It is impossible to make an animal "too healthy".

[Richard.C]

What percentage of a snails mass,rodents ect is made up of water?

If anything water sourced from food is beneficial,2 birds one stone,especially for arid living reptiles that dont hsve water available

Theres some weird thinking in this thread,dont forget the k.i.s.s princapal,over complicating things can have negative results,ever think lots of water per can mimicks what eating a prey animal would give,eg rodents have a high percentage of water in there body mass

Water being extremely important to survive

[justyna.ewa]

You know what contains lots of water?
Greens and veggies.
Oh, and also water.
I don't see how wet food having more water makes it more valuable than dry food for having more nutrients. Water is in pretty much everything else non-protein that he is fed.

[Richard.C]

The percentage of water food contains has nothing to do with nutrients,eg ten percent water isnt 90 percent nutrients,all it is saying that food contains ten percent water,the rest could be anything,the wet food may have 80 percent water,but could have more nutrients,water content is just that,how much it contains

Coukd be fats,dies,setting compounds,heck if u listen to other comments washing powder as well

Feeding food with less water content just makes them drink more to make up for lacking hydration,thats if u supply enough water to make up for less in diet

So on your thinking,plants,vegies,prey animals are bad for them to eat,contains to much water,suprised they arent extinct,lol

[justyna.ewa]

That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

Let's do some math.
If wet food is 80% water, then the remaining 20% is where the nutrients would be. Correct?
If dry food is 10% water, then the remaining 90% is where the nutrients would be.
If even up to half of that "remaining part" is preservatives or filler, then dry food still has 35% more nutritional value than wet food.
90/2=45 and 20/2=10

How is needing to "make up for" the missing water in dog food with actual, drinking water bad? That is why he is fed greens and veggies. Because they contain so much water, which as you so aptly pointed out, is necessary for their survival.

[Usersafe]

Not a scientific study but a review of Pedigree from a source I generally trust,

http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food- ... od-canned/

Plus now with added plastic,
http://www.dogfoodadvisor.com/dog-food- ... od-recall/

I would never feed my skinks wheat gluten, ground wheat, corn gluten meal, vegetable oil, carrageenan, etc.

[Linnea]

because a skink probably doesnt know how to make up for the lack of water content in dry or semi dry dog food by means of regular drinking.

without a study of how skinks drink to compensate its hard to say how harmful it could be, or not at all.

those calculations are correct, and weve already seen them many times, they do not contribute to the topic, which is currently:
- dry dog food and water content, harmful or not?

since dry dog food is untried as a staple food on this forum, meaning the majority of all skink breeders in the world havent fed it as a staple.

-----------------------------------------
btw. i feed cesar dog food. in sweden it is a medium premium brand with 60% meat content and no fillers, but plenty of water. no preservatives as most cheap are illegal to import. ve thought of using dry dog food but quickly left the idea once i looked closer at some of the bags - they are way too often specialized on a certain type of dog, with extra nutrients. they also swell in the stomach even if put in water before feeding, and skink stuff themselves to the limit - what if they insides got damaged from repetitive feeding?

i wish to warn you about the extra nutrients. some are easy to dispose off for a regular size dog, but a skink keeps fat storable vitamins for MUCH longer - making it potentially harmful to overdose any nutrients. thats what meant before....though i used the word "healthy" and you interpreted it as "too healthy".

english is not my main language, so if anything sounds odd dont hesitate to ask for me to be more clear.

[Jeff]

I try one more time, even though at this point I think it's hopeless.

That made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Let's do some math.
If wet food is 80% water, then the remaining 20% is where the nutrients would be. Correct?
If dry food is 10% water, then the remaining 90% is where the nutrients would be.
If even up to half of that "remaining part" is preservatives or filler, then dry food still has 35% more nutritional value than wet food.
90/2=45 and 20/2=10

How is needing to "make up for" the missing water in dog food with actual, drinking water bad? That is why he is fed greens and veggies. Because they contain so much water, which as you so aptly pointed out, is necessary for their survival.

The ONLY reason any of this math makes any difference is if for some reason the skink has a limited number of bites it can take in a day or something. If he simply needs to eat a few more bites of wet food to get what he needs, why is that bad? Especially when it saves him the trouble of drinking so much, because that must be a chore too. A skink has absolutely no trouble eating enough wet food to meet his nutritional needs. So why do you think it is better if he gets his nutrients without water? That's what I am trying to understand. No one said that wet food is better because it has more water, you said dry food is better because it has less water. Since water is good for skinks, why are you so againt having it in their food? It's fine for them to get their required water from drinking or other food no one said it wasn't. Just that is not better to get it that way. It is equally effective either way. You continue to answer questions that are not asked, but refuse to answer the one I have asked repeatedly:

How does the lower water content alone, make dry food better than wet food?

And I already fully understand that a bts can fit more "nutrients" in his mouth when he is not wasting all of his mouth space on water.

[Rainycat]

Are you using "chix" to refer to chicken? If so, it would cause a lot less confusion if you could refer to it by its commonly known name (chicken), we've got a lot of old folks on this forum and those poor saps confuse easily.
IF chix means chicken... boiled chicken is fine as a treat, but is not appropriate as a primary protein source. Canned cat food is generally accepted as a good protein staple for young skinks (1yr or less), but it is NOT recommended to feed canned cat food regularly to an adult skink, canned dog food is preferred. As far as what type/brand/flavor of canned dog food you feed- that is really up to you. I personally like to mix it up (really just for my own personal amusement, as the evidence shows that canned pedigree dog food is about the best thing out there to feed as your staple protein), so I feed chicken, beef, lamb, pedigree, alpo, proplan, wellness, blue buffalo... whatever strikes my fancy that day![/quote]

Thanks for the clarification on the chicken cat food and the dog food (and yes I was abbreviating chix for chicken!), I just bought some pedigree beef dog food, and I also boiled some lean ground beef, Mr Skink wanted nothing to do with either.. I'll keep trying! I suppose when he gets hungry enough he'll eat.. geesh, I have a fussy shephard too!

[critterguy]

Jeff: What brands were compared to pedigree? Just curious if other cheap dog food brands have been tried.

I've been feeding my skinks a mixture of various dog foods, pretty much whatever comes my way. Also, some cat food. Both wet food and dry kibble(dry kibble is simply soaked to soften it enough for them to chew). Supplementing with Rep-cal calcium with D3. Its been two years now and I have what I would consider two healthy skinks with no serious medical issues.

[taniya91]

It really gets me that people are arguing with reputable breeders on here. I have a ton of respect for these breeders and would never intentionally say something to insult or disrespect them if they say pedigree is good I'll use pedigree...if it causes obesity in dogs that sucks but the last time I checked bts aren't dogs....at least mine aren't