blood with pin & round worms!! need info.

[Yve]

My blood finally took her first poop since I bought her and I took it for a fecal test. Turns out she has pinworms and roundworms.
My vet said pinworms are passed down from parents and roundworms can be picked up from rodents and amphibians.
Can anyone give me more information about this, can this happen to a captive bred animal? The vet also said that it is unlikely for these parasites to be passed from reptile to reptile unless they eat the others feces. Blah!! I don't think they would do that. Any information about this would be greatly appreciated!
The vet fit me in to pick up meds. on Monday so if anyone can tell me what meds. they've used and found to be most effective and the least harmful...I would appreciate that as well. I've heard some scarey stories about the wrong meds. being used....and I don't want that to happen with me girl.:(

[Darren Hamill]

Yve,

It's normal for a CB animal to have pinworms or round worms but it is possible for them to pick it up. IMO an animal can get some parasites without consumption of faeces. Simply sharing water bowls is an easy for roundworms to travel to a different host.

I would suggest using Panacure for the pinworms and if I remember correctly it will also treat roundworms as well. The dosage is small in comparison (I can't remember it off hand) but there is no real danger if it is over dosed to some degree. Flagyl and Salfa based antibiotics can be very harmful if not properly used although you wouldn't be using these two drugs in this case.

Sorry I couldn't take longer to explain. Post any questions you would like to know and I'm sure others and myself will be able to help you out.

Thanks,
Darren Hamill
http://www.hamillreptiles.com

[Yve]

Darren,

I've had her for a short time and she's housed sererately from my other two. They're tests were clean. Could she get those parasites from frozen feeders?
I'm trying to get to the bottom of this!:mad: Anyways, thanks for your help, especially the info. on meds. I'm going to get a book on reptile diseases and parasites soon, there's just not enough information on the web, I couldn't find anything on internal parasites. Thanks again!:)
Yve

[Darren Hamill]

Because of the fact that your blood has never been housed with another herp, that would lead me to believe that she had these issues when you first acquired her.

There is no way that pinworms or roundworms could have passed to your blood by the consumption of frozen thawed mice or rats. The only thing that I'm aware of that could withstand such extremes would be a few different forms of bacteria.

I also forgot to mention earlier that Droncit and Panacure are both used to treat pinworms and roundworms. The dosage should be 5-7 mg/kg but there is no danger of overdosing with these two antibiotics to a degree. I have used both at 10-15 mg/kg and have found that in some cases it may actually work better and faster. (Although I would not recommend it to every body) There are many people that use these two drugs this way with no ill effects.

Thanks,
Darren Hamill
http://www.hamillreptiles.com

[Grant vg]

Well, i'm guessing mine have them as well....So how much is this gonna cost me Darren. Can u give me a ball park?
Obviously, ima wait for them to defecate so i can get a fecal done, but i might as well start savin up now .:(

[Darren Hamill]

Grant,

It shouldn't cost you much at all as far as I'm concerned. The trip to the vet and the fecal would cost you about $50-65? The Droncit and Panacure are both fairly cheap antibiotics as well. I imagine you could have it all said and done for $100 or less. I wouldn't consider that expensive at all really.

What makes you think that your Blood has worms as well?

Darren Hamill
http://www.hamillreptiles.com

[Grant vg]

All three were purchased together.... So unless it happened after Yve took posession of hers..mine probably have it too.
Thanks for the pricing info!

[Joe]

also you can buy panacure from most farm supply stores and it's cheaper than getting it from the vet

[Yve]

Joe & Melissa,

thanks much for that tip.:)

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

Panacur will take care of the pins and rounds. The correct doseage is 100mg/kg given once and then again in 2 weeks. To work out the dosage you will have to know what strength the Panacur is (for example 100mg/ml). If you post all the info on here I can work it out for you.

He's an example:

Panacurs strength = 100mg/ml
Dosage = 100mg/kg

Therefore 1ml of panacur will worm a 1kg snake.....so, if your snake is 5 kgs you'd give him 5mls of panacur.

Another Example:

Panacurs strength = 250mg/ml
Dosage = 100mg/kg

1ml of panacur will now worm 2.5kg of snake.....so, if your snake is 5kgs you'd give him 2ml of panacur.

Hope this helps,
Corey

[Yve]

thanks Corey, your explanation was very clear!:)
I'll be taking her to the vet anyways to get an accurate weight. and purchase the panacur from the farm store. Also, I'll post what recommendations the vet gave me to administer the drugs.
appreciate your help
:)

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

A fairly good vet in the area is Dr. Tracey Burrows (sp???) at Lincoln Village Animal Hospital at the corner of University Ave and Bridgeport (I believe). There phone number is 519-746-7557.

They don't really specialize in Reptiles but in my opinion they are the best ones in the area. I use them for my reptiles.

Corey

[Yve]

Corey,

the vet gave me panacur 100mg/ml strength
and the dosage was .75ml(she said she rather give her the lower end dosage because it is hard on their system to give high end dose)
the blood weighs 3.89kg (not quite the 20lbs I estimated!)
Yve

[Yve]

so the dosage is only 25mg/kg, I hope it does the trick. She's due for another dose in 2 weeks.
i ended up getting the panacur from the vet because I could not find it anywhere else.

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

The standard dosage range for Panacur is 50-100mg/kg. Panacur is very safe to use and to tell you the truth I don't even dose out Panacur.....I just eye ball it. I don't know if it is true or not but I've been told that whatever Panacur isn't used is passed out of the snake. I haven't killed a snake yet worming it. Last year I wormed everything with Panacur and Flagyl just to be safe. Now I have a standard policy to worm everything with Panacur and Flagyl (if I didn't produce it then I worm it).

Corey

[Yve]

Corey,
thanks again:) The vet said that if I wanted to increase the dosage they would give me more. Can I give her another .75ml tomorrow? Also, can you administer the meds. by injecting it into a feeders mouth? Sorry for all the ?'s but I want to make sure I get it done right.
Yve

[Grant vg]

Considering all three came from the same place, do u guys think i could just skip the fecal and treat with Panacur....its not that i'm cheap (hehe) but whatever autumn has my two would probably have the same....
Also, say they both dont have any worms...is it bad if i treat them?
Or Corey, like u said whatever they dont use they rid it themselves.....
And when the treatments are done then i can get a fecal....because i would rather treat now and fecal later since they have not pooped yet...'
What do yall think?

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

It is ok to up the dosage tomorrow......I usually just inject the meds into the dead rat if it is a liquid or shove it up the rats *** if it's in a pill form (only on dead ones though). If you are going to inject the meds it's best to inject it into the stomach area as I have found that is the easiest place to inject it.....plus it will hold quite a bit of liquid too.

Grant,

As I said before I worm everything. I don't do fecals anymore unless something looks wrong. I just assume they have something and treat them with Panacur and Flagyl right off the bat (I also treat them with Nix for Mites as soon as I get them as well). If you treat them right it is safe to do. If there are no worms there then the meds will just pass through the snake with nothing to kill.

Corey

[Yve]

thats good to hear, I'll give her a second dose. I noticed some of it leaked out of her mouth too when it was administered the other day, which would lessen the dose as well. I'll inject it into the feeder this time. thanks again!
Yve

[Yve]

here's the update:
I injected .75ml today into the dead rats mouth (all the way down the throat) and nothing leaked out at all. The blood ate it (as usual just opening her mouth and letting me drop it in!lol)so now she has been dosed with 50mg/kg.
Grant-the cost has now gone up to $10 for 2 doses for one snake. btw-I have called every farm store around this area and am yet to find Panacur. No one knows what it is.
I'm thinking it might be sold under another name but I'm not sure.

[Corey Woods]

Panacur - fenbendazole. You can get it at any TSC store.....it is used as a horse and Cattle wormer.

Corey

[Yve]

I tried TSC and they went on a wild goose chase in their computer!lol. Didn't know what Panacur was but I'll ask for fenbendazole next time. thx again Corey.

[Yve]

I have a question about panacur paste. Its sold as a 25g syringe with paste 10%w/w. I have no idea how to dose it out.
Its strength is 100mg/g. whats the conversion to mls.? Can someone help me out with this one?
thx
Yve

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

1 ml and 1 CC are the same thing. Basically you will have to figure out how many mls/cc's are in the tube of panacur. The other way to do it is to dose everything in grams because that is what the paste is measured in. However, that would require you to get a very accurate scale to weigh small dosages of panacur which you probably don't have access to. If it says on the tube how many KG's of cattle the tube will worm then I can figure out how many mls are in the tube. I haven't worked with the tube panacur in over 4 years so my memory isn't upto speed on it. However, I believe on the one side of the plunger there is a gauge that tells you how many KG's of animal you are worming. So, that may help you out.

Corey

[Yve]

Corey, I was hoping you'd reply to this one!:)
the contents of one syringe (being 2500mg of fenbenzadole)will deworm a 500kg horse. But the dose is 5mg/kg. Thats what throws me off on the marked weights, plus the lowest gauge # is 250kg. If you can figure out the mls. with this information that would be a great help! I have smoke coming out of my ears thinking about it but I'll continue to work on it. I really should have payed more attention in school!:O
this is the weight of the snakes:
3.6kg and 4.5kg

thanks!

[Yve]

Just got some information on dosage from beanfarm. Their customers use 4cc/lb.

[Corey Woods]

Yve,

Sorry I didn't reply sooner......I don't check every forum.

Anyways, the dosage for snakes is 50-100 mg/kg (I use 100). So, if the tube will worm 500 kg's of cattle at 5mg/kg then one tube will worm 25 Kg's of snake at 100mg/kg (50kgs of snake at 50mg/kg dosage).

Basically if you increase the dosage 5 times then you have to decrease the number of KG's of animal you can worm by 5 times.

Corey

[Yve]

Corey....i did manage to figure that out;) thanks anyhow for your help:)