Overview Veterinary and vitamin D

Veterinary category has 147 items

Animals need Vitamin D too

Pets as well

Farm Vets are paid when their "patients" are healthy,
   vs doctors who are paid only when "patients" become sick

_Cows are routinely given 30 IU per kilogram (which would be 10,000 IU for a 150 lb person)
Same information is available on Cattle need 66 IU of vitamin D per pound
The US RDA of vitamin D for cows is 13 IU per kilogram (which would be 4,300 IU for a 150 lb 'cow')
Virtually all US farmers who raise livestock use feed which is supplemented with vitamin D
Merick Vet Manual supplement if not have UV or sunlight

The cow experts probably base their ideas on

- what is needed,
- what actually works,
- what is cost effective (vitamin D for a cow costs about $1/year), and
- what does not have ANY long-term bad side-effects

Vet-grade Vitamin D: $50 million for the entire US population for a year.

Cow owners use really low cost vitamin D
Vitamin D costs the owner $1/cow for an entire year for a dose rate which is effectively 10,000 IU for a normal weight human.
Assuming that you want to give say 7,000 IU of vitamin D to every person in the US
And since a person weighs about 1/5 that of a cow, 7,000 IU vitamin D would be about 16 cents per year (vet grade)
Thus the cost of vet-grade vitamin D for the entire US population would be approximately
311 million * 16 cents = $50 million

Many Dog breeds get more Vitamin D than humans (generally recommend 30 IU/kg = 400 IU per 13.3 kg)

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Pet reptiles need UV or they get rickets*

There is a large group of owners of pet reptiles who have discovered the exact UV needs.*

  • The owners of pet reptiles have typically have added UV lamps.
  • It may be that due to the research of reptile pet owners that a simple $30 UV lamp can be made to allow humans to generate vitamin D while sitting at the computer.
  • When given a choice between a heat lamp and a UV lamp, many reptiles will choose the UV lamp*
    • easy choice, since they can 'see' what to humans is the invisible UV


There is a nice story of discovery of full spectrum lights for birds http://www.avianweb.com/lighting.html*
The majority of 1,000 birds tested had UV coloring (which is seen by birds, and not by humans nor non-avian predators)*
Can avian predators see UV?
During preening, wild birds spread a fatty substance on their wings which, when exposed to UV, turns into vitamin D which they later ingest during preening*
Fresh hay for horses was found to have 2,000 IU per kilogram (in one year the vitamin D content of the hay will fall by 70%)

Even Nocturnal reptiles appreciate UVB

  • from a UV discussion forum Jun 2011

Leopard geckos have "traditionally" not been offered UV because they are "nocturnal". I reckon they survive in captivity without UVB, because they are good at absorbing calcium from the gut, and people have learned to dust their insects with calcium powder and a little D3 as supplement powder. But I reckon most of them kept like this are going to be rather like most humans nowadays - on the edge of D3 deficiency.

I give all my geckos UVB and the year I started using it, my gecko fertility/ hatching success rates went up from 50% to 99% and my geckos were noticeably healthier all round.

US patent 4,970,203 Nov 1990 Method for improving reproductive functions in mammals (vitamin D)


Pets (dog, cats, birds, , , , )

Vitamin D for dogs - review by Vitamin D Council, Nov 2016

An easy way to give vitamin D to your pet

Just add 5,000 IU of vitamin D to their meal at a frequency based on their weight
  The half-life of vitamin D for dogs is similar to that of humans - about a month, so giving every few days is not at all a problem
   the Vitamin D can be a capsule, the contents of a capsule, drops, etc. - all about 5 cents per 5,000 IU

Just mark your calendar
Most vets have found that animals need 30 IU per kg
15 kg pet ==> 450 IU: 5,000 IU once every 10 days
30 kg pet ==> 900 IU: 5,000 IU once every 5 days
45 kg pet ==>1350 IU: 5,000 IU once every 4 days

If your pet has little access to noonday sun (and being behind a window does not count),

then the pet will most likely be very deficient.
For deficiency it is best, like for humans, to stock up initially.
Stocking up might be done by dosing at 3X the maintenance rate for a month
Example: 15 kg pet: once every 3 days instead of once every 10 days


Vitamin D is a rat poison if VERY HIGH quantity

Lethal dose which will kill half of the rats (LD-50) = 17 mg/kg of rat = 680,000 IU per kg
Thus for a 100 kg rat (weight of an human adult) the LD-50 would be 68,000,000 IU


See also at VitaminDWiki

See also web

Vitamin Tolerance of Animals - 1987.pdf A, Bs, D, E, K

from US Board of Agriculture National Academies Press

Vitamin D levels in other mammals

Feldman 2005
Vit-D-ency- editor Feldman 2005

Vitamin D for horse (per kg of feed, not weight)

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Vitamins for Animals - book 2010

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also has pictures of variety of animals who were vitamin D deficient
PDF is attached at the bottom of this page

Lethal Dose of Vitamin D for Dogs - 1932

 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

Vitamin D levels in various species - 2020

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 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki
Short url = http://is.gd/vetvitd

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