snip "You should however be aware that these worms are usually farmed outside," or are farmed in large bins indoors with dirt from outside"endsnip



If you are referring to night crawlers (Lumbricus terrestris) then these are not typically farmed as thier reproductive rates are too slow to make this profitable. They are collected and held until sold.

If you are referring to redworms, or driftworms then these tend to be either one of two Eisenia spp (these may or may not be accepted as they secrete an acrid secretion when damaged or stressed).



snip "and that probably every individual earthworm is full of nematode eggs. Your frogs ingest these eggs with the worm and inside your frog they hatch."endsnip



The vast majority of nematodes present in earthworms or redworms are either harmless soil nematodes and thier eggs and/or nematodes that specifically parasitize the worms themselves. The problem with these nematode loads in the worms comes when you have fecal checks done on the frogs and get back false positives for nematodes. Often not feeding the frog worms for a week or so will result in negative fecal checks for nematodes.



Canadian Frog if you have an actual citation containing an identification of the specific species of a nematode directly infecting captive anurans using Lumbriculus terrestris as the vector then I would appreciate seeing it....



I would suspect that the actual risks of the frog getting a nematode infection from being earthworms to be very low and is probably comparable to the frog aquiring a coccidia infection from being fed crickets or roaches...





snip " Luckily these nematode worms have an indirect life cycle and once the worms mature inside the frog they are passed out in the feces and cannot reinfect your frog."endsnip



If they have an indirect life cycle then they are not simply passed out of the frog as you indicate but instead will remain inside the frog until the nematode dies from some cause such as age, immunoresponse or treatment with an antihelmetic...



snip " However, if you keep feeding your frog these worms you keep infecting it. Also, they can accumulate in your terrarium substrate after they are released in the feces. Are these worms harmful or fatal to your frog? No, they are not."endsnip



This is an inexact statement. A small parasite load is often not harmful to the host unless the host becomes immunocompromised in some fashion which allows for secondary infections and other problems to set in. However if the frog is continually infected with the parasite then a larger infection (and in some cases a superinfection) can set in resulting in significant harm or death of the frog.





Ed

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