Thanks for the great post, but you did not address my point. Why not support their immune system, first.



You did mention that stress impacted their ability to control parasites. Isn't it a little more accurate that stress actually impacts the immune system and that hinders not only the snakes ability to control parasites(or simply exsist with them) but to fight off all pathogens.



The above is my point, while I totally support the use of Vets, I think we should support our snakes so that Vets are not "commonly" needed for such things are normal parasite loads.



Holistically, there is a "normal" balance of energy consumption, energy usage, and parasite load that allows snakes to maintain a decent body weight, growth, reproductive success and longevity. The snakes(reptiles) I work with in the field seem to live forever. yesterday, I photographed a gila I first photographed, 30 years ago. It does not appear to look old yet, not compared to other older looking individuals.



Yet in captivity, we(all of us) have listless overweight snakes. And we take away everything that would allow them to be active trim healthy. We do not allow exercise(sweater boxes), we keep them at the lowest possible temp, we feed them on a schedule, that does not reflect anything of the snakes natural stradgy.



Again, I offer a wide range of temps and I do not get overweight fat snakes, sir, getting fat is a sign their metabolism is too low. Getting overwelmed by parasites is a sign that their immune system is out of wack. Yet we do not change the conditions that cause these, instead we take them to the vet.



Again, deseased snakes SHOULD go to the vet, the above is not desease, its conditional and can easily be prevented with proper husbandry. Consider, proper husbandry is husbandry that allows the animals to have normal natural defenses against such things as parasites.



I also disagree, in this area, kingsnakes, there is not kings shipped from indo. In fact, there are many hundreds of thousands captive produced each and every year. I venture to say that wild caughts only make up a small percentage of the kings in captivity. So for the sake of this forum, Parasite overload is not a common problem for kingsnakes. Yet, treating for parasites is common. I would also venture to say, its done because the keepers know of no other option. Cheers

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