MIGHT have a less expensive Calcium option... help?

[Mozelle]

I could use some expert help on this one...
But I've been frustrated at the cost and unavailability of liquid calcium in my area. And then I was in Costco....

I just picked up a 1 litre bottle of a liquid calcium supplement for myself and had a tiny epiphany. The bottle was nearly the same cost as the 100 ml bottle of Calcivet.
The components of the "Wellesse" human Calcium is:

30 mls contains:
- 1000mg of Calcium (Calcium citrate, Calcium phosphate Tribasic)
- 200 mg Phosphorous
- 25 mcg/1000 IU Vit D3

Calcivet recommends 0.5 ml of product in 125 ml of water.
IT's components are (per liter)
- 33 g Calcium
- Vit D3 25000 IU

Here's my problem... I am Really lousy at calculations and was hoping someone might take on the challenge of comparing the two supplements, because IF the human supplement is alright at particular proportions, then it is going to be a LOT less expensive. (and alot more accessible).
I'm going to take a crack at this myself, but my guess is that someone out there can give me advice on it Looonnnggggg before I wrap my head around the dreaded numbers.....

Any takers??

[L in Ontario]

I cannot compare those - I'm no chemist nor mathematician but I will be watching this with much anticipation and hope someone can "do the math" with this.

[Franklin75]

I am a chemist by trade but even I have to get someone to check my numbers, so I will go through the calculations and if someone sees and error please post.
The easiest way is to take it down to the same unit which in this case is mL so I just divided the numbers for Wellesse by 30 to see what one milliliter would contain.

1 ml of Wellesse:
33.33mg Ca/mL
6.66 mg P/mL
0.83 mcg/mL

Now the Calvicet numbers are per liter, so I divided by 1000 to get to milliliters
Also, IU stands for International Units, and it varies by vitamin. I looked it for D3 up and 1 IU=.025 mcg for D3

so 1 ml of Calcivet is
33g/1000ml = (.033g/ml) * (1000mg/g) = 33mg Ca/mL
25000 IU * (.025 mc/IU) = (625 mc/L) * (1L / 1000ml)= 0.625 mcg/ml

So according to that they have the same amount of Calcium, and Wellesse has more vitamin D.

[L in Ontario]

Thanks Franklyn - that's terrific!

I know so little about chemicals per say. Does anyone know whether the phosphorus in the Wellesse is okay or harmful to finches?

[Mozelle]

Thank you!! for the calculations!
You are amazing!

I have done a little bit of a check on phosphorous for finches - and have seen that it Is used in combination with calcium and vit D as a supplement.

I would definitely welcome more input on that for those with more experience than I.

So far... this is looking to be a reasonable (and Cheap... cheep?) calcium supplement...

[Franklin75]

It is one of the essential nutrients required for life but that is a good question to raise that I didn't think of. Too much of anything even vitamins and minerals can cause problems. I looked at my bird vitamin supplements and one of them had phosphorous in it.
I use 1/8 of a teaspoon 3 times a week as per the instructions.
This is going to be very rough because I don't have a scale here to see how much 1/8 of a teaspoon weighs. The funny thing is that I have one for making bread but it died two days ago.
It is about the same as salt I would say, and 1/8 teaspoon of salt is 295mg (according to the site I looked at).
The supplement has 70.5g Phosphorous per kg
This is a percentage problem
70.5g/1000g = .0705% Phosphorous
IF 1/8 teaspoon weighs 295mg
295mg * (0.0705) = 20.8mg
So the supplement has about 3 times more phosphorous in it than the supplement you have been looking at assuming the weight is true. I can't see the weight being that far off so it is in the ballpark. This is a 3 times a week vitamin though so take that into account also. You are also diluting yours whereas I put mine directly on the eggs (which is how I give it to them).
I would like to hear someone else's take on it, but I think it should be fine. Under normal circumstances for vitamin or mineral toxicity to set in you really need to ingest a lot of it.

[MLaRue]

I don't know if this helps or makes things worse but look at this product - is it comparable to what you have or could you find this one in your area?

http://friskyfinches.com/calcium_gluconate_500ml.htm

[B CAMP]

That looks like a good value at 6.00 bottle