Vitamin D / UV Light / Sunlight

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I also can't bring my rabbits outside, nor the rats (nine rats would be worse then watching a group of preschoolers!), and I have one cat who likes to go outside (on a harness or in the dog run)...but my other cat is fearful of the outdoors.

Living in AZ, I can't just set up a run/enclosure for the rabbits & rats to play in because our yard isn't landscaped (we rent) and even if it was landscaped..it would be all stones (that gets hot!!). We have small cactus & other various pricker things all over the yard, lizards, sometimes tarantulas, possibly snakes in the yard, etc...too risky for rats and rabbits.


So, can you crush vitamin D pills? I wouldn't even know that you can get rabbits to eat them...without mixing it with pumpkin or something. Also...aren't we feeding at least a small amount pellets because it has all of the vitamins rabbits need?


 
ra7751 wrote:
One thought on light coming thru window panes....while is warming and feels good....at least here in the US all commercial glass produced for homes or carsistinted either blue or green (filtered) and do not allow the beneficial rays thre (even a screen will filter these rays). These beneficial rays are filtered because they have a "bleaching" effect and will cause dyes and paints to fade.

Randy
Click to expand...
How interesting I did not know this. I know some of the windows in my house are tinted but many more are not.


If you live in an area where your rabbit can not go outside for whatever reason. Depending on your bun you can always walk outside with them (in your arms) for 1-3 minutes. This amount of sunlight should be sufficient.

Also Randy, how does a screen filter this light? Admittedly it would filter out a portion, but not all of it.
 
Nearly all window glass is tinted...again, at least in the US. It is sometimes difficult to see by eye. In the good old days when we needed a windshield in a car, we would use a sheet of white paper to determine if we had a green or a blue tint. As far as a screen, I will see if I can find the article, written by a college researcher, regarding the dilution and filtering effects of tinting and screening.

And here is an interesting article that isn't about rabbits....but still on the topic of Vitamin D.

I don't think blood tests scan for Vitamin D....it's something we just know by presentations regarding MBD....and it's something we are keenly aware of when dealing with wildlife. Vitamin D can be found in liquid form. We usually use the Vitamin D tabs....crush it into a powder and it can be used in formula for the babies or sprinkled on wet greeens for older animals. As with many other things....you can overdo Vitamin D....and dosing is still a work in progress.

http://www.livescience.com/animals/090822-chameleons-sun.html

Randy
 
ra7751 wrote:
One thought on light coming thru window panes....while is warming and feels good....at least here in the US all commercial glass produced for homes or carsistinted either blue or green (filtered) and do not allow the beneficial rays thre (even a screen will filter these rays). These beneficial rays are filtered because they have a "bleaching" effect and will cause dyes and paints to fade.

Randy
Click to expand...
very well stated,//,thebeneficial solarrays are reflected off glass windows,,,heat rays do come through creating the green house effect,,,this aside rabbits do like to sun bathe:)
 
If you can't the levels of a rabbits vitamin D, how do you know if you should be giving them a supplement or how much to give. I would hate to over give but I would also hate it if that is the issue with Chase and her calcium. She doesn't get any pellets so I could see how she could be lacking in vitamin D. From my research it doesn't appear that veggies have vitamin D, or atleast they are not on any lists of high vitamin D foods. What about the hay we feed our bunny's, do they contain any vitamin D?
 
If you are worried about it couldn't you just give your buns vitamin D drops made for people? I personally use 2 drops of Vit D a day for myself. Couldn't you use the same drops and just drop it into your rabbits water? Or I know my nephew was getting Vit D drops when he was a baby. His drops were sweeten and he liked taking them. A rabbit might be more inclined to take those drops directly into the mouth.

Check your rabbit pellets bag to see how much vitamin D it contains. My bag list "Vitamin D3 2200 IU/kg min". Not exactly sure what that means as I dont' know what daily amount a rabbit needs. But he atleast is getting some from his food.

As for the "sun light" bulbs. I use a few of the kinds you can buy at petstores, for my reptiles. They need to be placed very close to the animal and need to be replaced fequently(every 6months-1year depending on use and type of bulb). You can't exactly buy one small one and put it on your roof and think it will do anything. I also can't see a rabbit wanting to lie under a bright fluorescent tube a foot away from its body all the time. Plus the good UV bulbs are expensive.
 
I have to sit in the sun everyday for at least 15 mins due to my Vitamin D insufficiency. Of course this is on top of drinking more milk and taking multi-vitamins with Vitamin D. Since I live in a Condo, putting Dunkin outside to play and get sun isn't possible. However, I had the idea that you could sit in a chair in the sun and hold your bunny in your lap. If you are especially paranoid (like me) of them getting scared and bolting you can attach a harness with leash for extra protection.

:)
 
I too have vitamin D deficiency. This is strange to me, because I am a strict bike commuter, which guarantees me at least 15 min outside every day (and I do mean every day: I commute by bike year-round, even in the WI winters). I also used to run quite a deal. The doctors did a test for my vitamin D levels--it was a blood test, and it took a lot longer for the results to come back than the CBC and thyroid tests they did at the same time, which may not mean anything, but points to me that they had to send the sample somewhere else to do the test because it is less commonly done. It broke down my vitamin D levels into different types of vitamin D, and it was determined that I'm low in D3. I take a gel capsule vitamin D3 supplement. I believe it is derived from fish.

These gel capsules might be a way to give a rabbit vitamin D3, or pills could be ground up and sprinkled on food or given in an oral suspension.

I did a back-of-the-envelope pharmacokinetics-type calculation in this thread: http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=48971&forum_id=48&highlight=vitamin+d+pellets
and determined in a non-accurate way that a rabbit needs approx 29 IU/kg of Vit D a day, based on what I'm taking as a supplement, and determined that pelleted feeds don't provide that much.
 
Thanks Claire, I hadn't seen that thread. My buns don't get pellets so I am sure they are raelly lacking vitamin D. I am going to talk to my vet when I take Chase in and see if there is anyway to test and discuss starting a supplement or pellets.
 
I'm pretty sure it's possible to test, but I am from the land where vitamin D is king--one of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's major contributions to science/medicine in the early part of the 20th century was about vitamin D, adding it to milk, testing for it, and it's health benefits, so it's a bit of a different thing around here. We also have an amazing Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory affiliated with the vet school here. I would think that most vet schools would be able to test for vitamin D as well, probably through similar Diagnostic Labs.
 
Just found this thread and love it. Our bunny has dental issues so i took her outside the pasttwo days. It is hardto get sun so am thinking about getting a UV lamp as well. My frogs and lizards have lamps with UVbulbs but it didnt occur to me our bunny’s dental issues might be related to MBD.
 
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