Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had a savanna monitor for a year now, but he was wild caught and it turns out he was not wormed. Although he has no health problems and eats fine, i want to worm him. My previous reptile vet does not know how to worm lizards....he is not very experienced it turns out. I think i would do better myself. He is 25 inches TL. What should i use to do the job and what dosages should I give him? Thanks for all your help....

Why would you want to worm an animal that is outwardly healthy? With even sub-par husbandry Internal Parasites shouldn't be a concern. Your animal is in a captive environment and is not exposed to hardly anything that can harbor any Parasite eggs or parasites themselves. Furthermore, in order to "properly" worm any reptile, you'd have to identify what your trying to elimate, figure out what schedule/dosages/medication you need and go from thier. "Shotgunning" IMHO isn't really effective but is usually the first thing people think of when trying to worm anything

If he is healthy and eats fine, as you said, then why are you trying to give him something he obviously doesn't need? Just a thought.

i was just thinking of doing it because my crappy vet told me to try worming him with panacure although he was healthy, i feel dumb for even trying his service considering he killed a chameleon of mine. I need to find another. Anyone know of a good reptile vet in around San Diego CA?

he says he "appears" healthy--how do you know that if he deworms it the monitor may be more livelt and thrive better than ever. just because no outward signs doesnt mean no damage is being done. any wild caught lizard will pretty much have parasites. yes it would be best to do afecal and see what you are dealing with i beleive "shotgunning" does make sense. i am a licensed tech at an animal hospital so i know athing or too. i recentl got asav and currently am deworming against all just to be safe. there is a great little book "Understanding reptil parasites" tons of great info and dosages. Top 4 dewormers are panacur, droncit, albon, and metronidazole. now most of these you would have to get from your vet though. so you could provide him with this info and he could guide you from there
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

sorry here is rest:

Panacur 25-50 mg/kg given orally every 7 days for 3 treatment

Droncit 5mg/kg repeat 2 wks

Metronidazole 25-50mg/kg and repeat in 3 to 4 days

Albon 50 mg/kg daily for 3 consecutive days then every 48hrs as needed (would need to check fecals)

I think its agood idea to deworm now instead of the animal getting stressed down the road and have an overgrowth of worms and having to try and dewornm a sick animal. just my thoughts
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

Thanks goose. You have been a big help. Should I use all of the mentioned treatments, or would just panancur work?

they say you should space them out a bit so as too not stress the animal all at once, but i would try to get the book and work on finding a vet to work with to fet the other meds. afecal is helpful to begin with but i am just bdeworming mine with all. started with the panacur and albon last week and will do droncit and metronidazole in a week or so. these four seem to get the broad spectrum of possible parasites. the albon gets protozoans. the droncit tapeworms, metronidazole also protazoans and promote natural intestinal flora health, and panacur does rounds and hooks and such. so get a good weight and do your calculations carefully and let your vet know what you're doing. glad to help as i tried to get help here and had to find info by myself. good luck
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

Wow, The worlds full of really poor techs, as well as Vets.

Any Vet or decent tech, would know better then to prescribe controlled meds over the internet. In fact, find out who Goose works for and send the e-mail to the Vets there. I imagine, Goose will be looking for a job.

If your monitor is sick, take it to a Good reptile Vet. I am sure there are many in your area. They will do a fecal and then take whatever steps are needed.

Being is your monitor has been doing well in captivity for over a year, I feel its a far better bet to continue what your doing.

You need to understand, normal parasites are a NORMAL part of wild monitors lives. They get more parasites with nearly all meals in nature. In nature monitors do not have a problem. They live, grow, breed, etc. WITH PARASITES.

The problem occurs when you take a wild monitor with parasites and keep it in crappy conditions to a point it loses its immue system. Then the parasites overload(bloom) and take over the host. Remember, those parasites depend on the host living. They are not suppose to kill their host.

What kills the monitor is a compromised immue system, not parasites.

ALso parasites have a life cycle. They normally only exsist in the monitor for a realitively short period. Then they pass on to and intermediate host. The good part is, in captivity, there is no intermediate host. So your monitor soon rids itself of parasites. Some parasites can be passed back thru the monitor eating its own feces, don't let that happen(how simple is that?)

Which means, after a year, and if you take good care of your monitor(I assume you do, as you have had it a year) YOU DO NOT NEED TO HAVE IT WORMED. PERIOD.

As an example, I have generations upon generations of monitors. Of many many species, I never worm them, EVER. And I do not have problems.

You need to understand, worming monitors kept with good husbandry is totally needless. Then understand, worming monitors that are not kept with good husbandry, is also worthless, as they will simply die of something else. Its so very rare that worming is of actual value.

I know you will go ahead and worm your monitor, for the simple reason, you do not know what good husbandry is. So you want to hedge your bet. Its too bad, your betting with an animals life. Cheers

as youll note i told him what was in the book that was recommended. i also told him to work with his vet. he said his vet was not very experienced. o provided him with info to provide to his vet. i also told him he would need to get those meds from his vet so maybe you should read alittle closer to what i said. before saying someone doesnt know what they are talking about. also natural parasites are one thing in a wild animal, but once they are captive that is awhole nother story.
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

Part of your training is to learn this, you need to "see" a patient before prescribing meds. Thats very true here in this case. I hope you learn this or your time as a tech is going to be limited.

I do not need to read you posts any better then I read them. You should not help a person blindly treat a monitor. You should be explaining how a good reptile Vet could be of help. You could refer this keeper to a good reptile Vet. I am sure the Clinic your a Tech at(if you really are one) would have access to Reptile Vets. Also, Please take this post(entire thread) to them and see what they say. I would be very interested what the Vets there have to say about it.

If you are so right, you would surely have no reason not too. Cheers

you speak big but have no merit to your words. i told him to take the info to his vet--even if he deworms it on his own the monitor will be better off than doing nothing because his vet doesnt have a clue. part of being aherp owner is learning BEST care for your pet--it doesnt matter if you have a 8 yr degree or not. maybe you should get areptile parasite book or 2 and do some reading of your own. instead of flawnting nothing as knowledge
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

also none of these are controlled. most could be purchased from anywhere. just read the last line from my first post.
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

Please get into another field, where an animals life is not at stake. Thank you

>>also none of these are controlled. most could be purchased from anywhere. just read the last line from my first post.
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>>GOOSEBALLS
>>

Yes, they are all controlled substances. Any vet would know this. Any vet tech would know this.

And, yes, you were by definition illegally prescribing a controlled substance to that other person here on the forum when you posted specific drugs, dosages, and treatment length and then told the person to go ahead and give it to their animal. NO VET would ever do that. NO VET TECH would ever do that. They would have all told someone to take the animal to a vet because only a vet can prescribe a controlled medication AFTER having examined the animal them self in person.

What you see in the stores over the counter are for cats, dogs, and/or livestock depending on the packaging and those are pre-measured in relatively safe doses geared for those specific animals to be used by people who are already familiar with how to treat those animals. They are NOT calculated and pre-measured for use in reptiles. It is extremely easy to injure or kill a reptile using even a "safe" medication (by dog/cat/livestock standards) that is not calculated for the specific animal it is intended to be used for. Additionally, any really experienced herper with the knowledge of how to diagnose and treat parasites in their personal collections would know that most of those meds found in the stores are not even sold in a suspended form that can be given to a reptile safely because it makes getting the correct dose extremely hard even when one knows how to recalculate the dosage for a reptile. Any such knowledgeable herper would go to their vet for the medication and with their vet's knowledge and ok, keep that on hand at home for future use until that medication expired and they go back for a refill.

Additionally recommending the use of any wormer without having a vet involved is utterly stupid. You can't magically know what type of parasites an animal might have. Giving the animal the WRONG medication can cause problems of their own.
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PHWyvern

you seem to be confused on what a controlled substance is. there are certain drugs- mostly narcotics and such that need special forms and such to order and must be logged out and amounts carefully monitered and noted. antibiotics and these dewormers are not controlled. some may need prescriptios but they are not controlled substances. i know you high up folks think only your opinions are right, but i know what im talking about. im not just some joe schmoe. everything i said was perfectly fine in saying and correct
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GOOSEBALLS

lamina1982@hotmail.com

Well, considering your words and that my monitor appears to be healthy, i am not going to worm him. I keephave kept him with 3 basking spots, 130 and 145, 2 hiding places, with a bed-a-beast, vermiculite, cypress, and washed playsand mix, which holds humidity and burrows, and I feed him whole items, with occasional ground turkey coated in supplement every month two months. I have kept his temps high, not below 75 at night. This seems to work well. Also, just to clarify, you are Frank Retes, right?

first off, find a new vet. any good vet shoudl be able to do a fecal and tell you what is, or isn't present parasitically.

get a copy of the Klingenburg book, available at our site, it covers details. but justify it first, don't do it "just because".
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles

Robyn, is it "Understanding Reptile Parasites"? If so it is on the way. Also, do you know of any other good monitor literature, other than "The Savannah Monitor Lizard" by Benett and Thakordyal? I have that book and it has helped me improve my husbandry by a huge amount. I bought a book called "Popular Monitors and Tegus", by Michael Balsai, and it was a really bad piece of literature, it said to keep the basking area 85-95 degrees, and to keep on newspaper and feed catfood. You are justified to say that for every good monitor book there are 12 other bad ones lol.

that is the right book. as for others, check out our Monitor Pro Pack, i list the monitor books there that i think are important to have.
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robyn@proexotics.com

Pro Exotics Reptiles