No loving pet owner would knowingly feed poison to their pet. But what dog and cat owners don’t know is that their pet food and rat poison have a common ingredient: Vitamin D3. Vitamin D3 is one of many synthetic vitamins routinely added to pet foods, even those marketed as “natural.¹”
Synthetic Vitamin D3, also known as cholecalciferol, is one of the main active ingredients used in many rodenticides, like Quintox® and Rampage®. It kills rats dead. So it’s no coincidence that the most serious recalls of pet food involving synthetic vitamins were due to excessive synthetic Vitamin D3.
Cholecalciferol
Cholecalciferol (Vitamin D3) is a single-dose or multiple-dose rodenticide that causes mobilization of calcium from the bone matrix to plasma and death from hypercalcemia.
Time to death is 3 to 4 days after ingestion of a lethal dose. As the toxicant is slow-acting, bait shyness apparently does not occur. Once a rodent consumes a lethal dose, all food intake ceases.² The MSDS, or Material Safety Data Sheet, for Vitamin D3 is very revealing about its toxicity http://sciencelab.com/msds.php?msdsId=9923455.
Hypercalcemia
Vitamin D3 is essential in very small quantities and, like most fat soluble vitamins, it is toxic in larger doses. Excessive Vitamin D3 can lead to death from hypercalcemia. Hypercalcemia, or increased calcium levels, occurs when pets absorb too much calcium from their food. This can damage blood vessels, kidneys, the stomach wall and lungs, leading further to heart problems, bleeding, and possibly kidney failure.³ The dog and cats that became ill or died from recalled pet food with too much Vitamin D3 all had hypercalcemia.
Safe Vitamin D from Natural Sources
The best and safest sources of vitamin D are natural exposure of pets to sunshine and from eating whole foods. Foods like animal liver, fish liver oils, eggs and fish all contain natural Vitamin D. Feeding trials of Nature's Logic diets containing these whole food ingredients resulted in perfect blood chemistry and hematology tests in puppies, dogs, cats and kittens. Nature’s Logic is the only full-line, commercial pet food with no chemically-synthesized nutrients. All of the vitamins and minerals in our dry, canned and raw formulas are derived from food. This is the safest way to supply nutrients to pets. More information about our foods, visit us at www.natureslogic.com.
Did you know that Vitamin D3 was used in poisons to kill rodents? Leave a comment with your thoughts on the topic and share this important pet safety information with a friend.
2. http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/avian/pfs23.htm
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodenticide
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