Reptile & Amphibian Forums

does anyone know the dosing ratio for snakes? weight of snake to cc s of panacur? flagyl?
can they be injected into food items?
time between dosages?
any warnings or advice?

id appreciate any help. thanx.
joe

Yes,......the correct dosages are as follows....

*Panacur(Fenbendazole)..for worms 50-100mg/kg, repeat in 14 days

*Flagyl(Metronidazole)..for Flagellates...Entamoeba invadens,
Trichamonas, Balantidium, Rhizopoda, and Ciliates...administer at
25-50mg/per kg. repeat in 14 days.......I personally go with the higher side of the dose, Flagyl and panacur seem to be well tollerated by snakes.

Why do you need it?...is your snake regurgitating?....if so, also increase the temps some, so it's own "auto-immune" system can help combat the problem ,........also, it's impossible to properly diagnose things(fecal floatation, etc..) without seeing a vet, so I really would recommend seeing a good "reptile" vet
before attempting "hit-or-miss" medication administration, as you can risk valuable time(and health) of the snake.

Hope things work out for the snake!

~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Flagyl, as far as I know usually is in pill form. It does not mix well with water and some of the powder from the pill will NOT mix no matter how much you stir!,.....that's okay though.

I mix a proper portion of the 250mg pill after weighing the snake extremely accurately on a "triple-beam" scale in a little shot glass with just a little water, after getting the snake all ready to go, I give it one last mix for the powder that settles on the bottom, and quickly draw it up in an appropriately sized syringe with an attached tube on it for going down the snakes throat. Be VERY careful NOT!! to let the tube go down the snakes glottis(wind-pipe) located at the bottom of mouth, keep in mind they can move this around some!!.
DO NOT add the drug to a prey item and then feed it to the animal, just hold the snake upright and straight while gently sliding the tube down the throat a good ways.......slowly push the plunger down so it doesn't go rushing up out of the snakes mouth and nose, and keep it in the upright position while gently massaging the snakes belly so that gravity will help it go down into the stomach.

The reason I say DO NOT add the medication to the prey, is because many years ago I gave a proper dose down the throat to a dead lizard for an adult Scarlet King to consume, and couple days later when the prey began to digest, the snake went into uncontrollable convulsions and died!!!.....so I will NEVER make that mistake again......it must have made a toxic poison in the dead lizard somehow, and when it suddenly got released into the snakes system when putrified as opposed to being absorbed by itself with water, it made a poison of some sort!.

anyway, hope the snake does well!

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

>>...I gave a proper dose down the throat to a dead lizard for an adult Scarlet King to consume, and couple days later when the prey began to digest, the snake went into uncontrollable convulsions and died!!!....

I am not a vet, but I think I can say with 99.9% certainty that this was not caused by the Panacur. More likely something wrong with the lizard, but most likely something the snake already had (OPMV maybe?). Was this a wild-caught lizard that might have eaten bugs that had been sprayed with insecticde?

Panacur has been used accidentally at 500X the reccomended dosage without problem and it's byproducts are all harmless. The normal dosing method for most animals is to mix with food and I've given it (SafeGuard, same medicine) to dozens of snakes, injected into mice and they have fared as well as ones that did not need worming...with the exception of a few that I knew were already very weak and having other problems.

Note: I do my own fecal floats and while I can't always say which SPECIES I've found, nematodes are pretty obvious and all are treated with Fenbendazole.

That being said, I've had mixed results this way as far as actually eradicating the worms (including ones that I am certain are pinworms, so perhaps something happens before the food is digested that prevents it from being absorbed, but it certainly does not magically turn into a deadly toxin.

Also note that the most recent and authoritative books I've consulted now say that daily doses for several days are more effective. Those are out on loan right now, so I can't give exact quotes. I would reccomend anyone planning on using it to do some research and not take my memory as truth...
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

That Panacur given even in "mega-doses" doesn't seem to harm snakes, I have friends that can certainly attest to that!...I was amazed at some of the super-high doses my friend said he's administered!.

The lizard I used many years ago on that Scarlet King was a w/c from my yard in Ft. Lauderdale,FL., so who knows what possible things he had?...It just seemed strange that right about the time the decomposed lizards stomach(along with medication)would be rupturing from being digested that the snake all of the sudden went into the uncontrollable contorted convulsions. But as you stated, it could easily have been something inside the lizards stomach, or in it's system that caused it,....but I've also fed many different snakes tons of lizards from the same yard, and never once had any problem whatsoever!

Also, I never put the medication in a prey item before that either,.....so you can certainly see why I thought it could have been from the medication putrifying in the gut, as opposed to direct administration down the throat....know what I mean?

In all actuallity, I wish now that I had a necropsy done to find out exactly what caused the snake to die so suddenly like that,.....man that really upset me watching that gorgeous little dude die right in front of me like that. So ever since then, I never even entertained the idea of puting it in another prey item.........since you say you've done it to prey mice, as well as many other people have done as well, I wonder what the heck!!!

Either it didn't agree with the biology of the lizard digestion, or that one stupid lizard got hold of, or had built up some poison of some sort?.......I'll never really understand the deal there!LOL

best regards, ~Doug
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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"