Parasites at low levels are fine. The vast majority of reptiles that I have dissected (captive bred ones included) have had some sort of worms in their gut.

But the bottom line is this. While a few parasites are no big deal to a healthy reptile (or horse or dog) they can do no good whatsoever. At best they are benign but in times of stress (shipping, switching food types, being captured...) they can have a real negative effect. The more stress the worse it gets. A snake you catch in your backyard might be briefly stressed, but the snake that spends 1 week in a box on its way here from maylasia is a whole nother story. You could argue that if we kept them perfectly parasites shouldn't be an issue, but we both know that that is not reality for the VAST majority of captive snakes.

Its rare but I have seen a few snakes and many aquatic turtles with immense parasite loads that were getting by OK but clearly did better after treatment.

If you had the choice of a clean snake vs a parasitized one, why not worm them?

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