{"topic_id":"exotic_nutrition_tortoise","category":"exotic-pet-nutrition","context":"---\ntopic_id: exotic_nutrition_tortoise\ncategory: exotic-pet-nutrition\ntitle: \"Nutrition of tortoises and other reptiles (Merck): calcium:phosphorus, vitamin D3, UVB\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"Merck Veterinary Manual — Nutritional, Metabolic, and Endocrine Diseases of Reptiles (first-hand server-rendered HTML, stripped to text; retrieved 2026-07-29 via curl -A Mozilla/5.0)\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/merck/reptiles_nutrimet.txt\nsource_type: veterinary_reference\ndate_parsed: 2026-07-29\ntokens_estimated: 110\nverification: C1_substring_match\nclaims: 2\nsource_document: \"Merck Veterinary Manual, Nutritional, Metabolic, and Endocrine Diseases of Reptiles\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"Merck Veterinary Manual\"\n  title: \"Nutrition of tortoises and other reptiles (Merck): calcium:phosphorus, vitamin D3, UVB\"\n  url: \"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/reptiles/nutritional-metabolic-and-endocrine-diseases-of-reptiles\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-07-29\"\n  ref: \"Merck Veterinary Manual (first-hand HTML, stripped to .txt)\"\n  doc_type: \"professional veterinary reference (first-hand English text)\"\n  needs_review: false\n---\n\n# Nutrition of tortoises and other reptiles (Merck): calcium:phosphorus, vitamin D3, UVB\nSource: Merck Veterinary Manual article \"Nutritional, Metabolic, and Endocrine Diseases of Reptiles\" (first-hand, retrieved 2026-07-29 via curl, HTML stripped to plain text). All bullets are exact verbatim substrings of the cited source_file and C1-substring verified.\n\n## Calcium, vitamin D3 and UVB for herbivorous chelonians\n- `nutritional hyperparathyroidism is the most common bone disease encountered in reptile practice. It is caused by poor diet (low calcium:phosphorus ratio, vitamin D 3 deficiency) or poor husbandry (lack of UVB light, inadequate thermal provision)`\n- `herbivorous and insectivorous lizards and chelonians.`\n","sources":["exotic-pet-nutrition — Nutrition of tortoises and other reptiles (Merck): calcium:phosphorus, vitamin D3, UVB (retrieved 2026-07-29)"],"source":{"authority":"exotic-pet-nutrition","title":"Nutrition of tortoises and other reptiles (Merck): calcium:phosphorus, vitamin D3, UVB","url":"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals/reptiles/nutritional-metabolic-and-endocrine-diseases-of-reptiles","retrieved":"2026-07-29","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual, Nutritional, Metabolic, and Endocrine Diseases of Reptiles","verification_file":"pdf-raw/merck/reptiles_nutrimet.txt"},"source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual, Nutritional, Metabolic, and Endocrine Diseases of Reptiles","source_file":"pdf-raw/merck/reptiles_nutrimet.txt","tokens_estimated":110,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}