Reptile & Amphibian Forums

if a rondent you feed your snake has mites or lice can your snake get some kind of worms...I know if a cat eats a flea(s) they get tape worms. just wondering if thats similiar with snakes and rat parasites. Thanks

I don't have a difinitive answer for you, but probably not. I've never heard that about cats getting tape worms from eating fleas, but it makes sense. The fleas could have been on another mammal (like another cat) and be carrying the eggs of parasites from that animal (although tape worms seem less likely).

Reptile, however, are mostly immune to the parasites that mammals carry, so the chance the flea picking up something that would effect the reptile are slim (I think). I think you would e more likely to have problems from the the mouse itself acting as an intermediate host for something that it ingested, say from a lizard wandering through its food bin looking for insects.

Either way, using frozen/thawed rodents will greatly reduce the risk of either.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

From what I understand,...basically ALL rodents harbor what are known as Pinworms,....and most snakes have these worms as well, but normally cause no real harm to the snake, unless other factors cause the snakes immune system to be depleted to the point that parasites get the "upper-hand" of the snake....In any case, frozen rodents as Larry mentioned are the only way to go if at all possible. Freezing kills ALL the parasites that would be within any feeder rodent...............................Doug
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!

I certainly can't speak for all rodents, but I've been doing periodic fecals on my mouse colonies (started from adults from several sources) and only seen ONE pinworm egg so far. I assume it must have been passed through from another source or otherwise transferred during my rather lax testing procedures, otherwise there would be more. A fecal from an infected snake usually yields thousnads of eggs in a tiny sample.

Also, there are MANY species of pinworms, which are mostly host-specific (or close to it). Mouse pinworms do not INFECT snakes and vice versa, although I believe that either can ingest the eggs of the other and pass through viable eggs, or more likely larva by that point.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

Thanks for the info Larry!, it seems you have a little more insight about these Pinworms than I do!LOL...I was always under the impression that snakes got the pinworms from the mice!, and didn't know about all the species that were "host-specific"
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Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!