About a few months ago, my brooksi kingsnake began coughing up mucous. Thought it was an RI so I raised the temps and did the usual for RI-didn't go away after another month, so I took him in to the vet.



Vet took samples of saliva, feces, and blood, nothing came up. She put him on an antibiotic, and after two weeks, that didn't do any good.



He's still eating, defecating, behaving normally, just coughing up mucous.



Took a sample of the mucous into the vet. She looked and saw what she quoted as "little round black things" under the microscope. I had it sent into pathology, and they called back today saying they believe the round black things are lungworm eggs and that he has lungworm.



The vet is putting him on panacur and an injectable wormer to try and rid him of the lungworm. My questions are:



1) How in the world did he get the lungworm? Could he have had it before I got him and had something trigger the infection? How about from mice? I always feed f/t could there have been an infection in the mice I gave him?



2) Could lungworm infect other snakes that were in the same room, two shelves up from him on my rack system, even though they were removed from the room immediately after he began the coughing and strict handwashing was maintained between handlings? I also never shared mice or cage furniture with other snakes. There is some cage furniture of his out in the garage, where it has been for a couple months now-should I bleach it all?



3) Will the panacur do any good? I've read some reports that it kills off the lungworm, but then something about the rotting of lungworm bodies eventually kills the snake.



None of my other snakes are showing any symptoms.



-Cat

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