Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've said it here before.. you just never find a wild box turtle around here that's infected with internal parasites...
Until now!
That dog chewed box turtle is doing so much better but this morning I put her in her little tub to soak, then the turtle ate, then the turtle pooped.
It's so infested that I could actually see the roundworms wriggling around in the feces. ewwwwwwww
This is the first time I have ever seen a box turtle from this area be positive for parasites.
So nameless is now back in the hospital for treatment on that and to make sure there's no infection. I've detected a little bit of odor, I'm not so sure all infection is cleared up so this one needs to stay there again for a few more days.

Even though this one wasn't near any of my turtles except for about 20 seconds for Hobo to look at.. but he wasn't touching the turtle, we're going to do fecals on all of them this week anyway. ewww that was GROSS!!
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PHRatz

Nice! I just dewormed four snakes (before I ran out of money!!) at roughly $200 a piece. Two wild-caught, two captive bred. I think _everything_ (that eats raw animal food)has parasites!

Nanci
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*****
1.0 Classic Corn, 0.1 Lavender, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
0.1 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

>>Nice! I just dewormed four snakes (before I ran out of money!!) at roughly $200 a piece. Two wild-caught, two captive bred. I think _everything_ (that eats raw animal food)has parasites!
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>>Nanci

um... what vet are you going to or.. better yet what kind of rare parasites did your snakes have? lol

Even considering some vets mark things up ridiculously high, the most it should have cost you for a typical deworming of each snake would have been $50 tops and $30 being a more reasonable amount.

It costs me about $2 to run a fecal check on my own versus a vet that might charge anywhere from $18-$25 per sample check.

A small 15ml bottle of panacur could treat many of the common parasites and only costs like $15...and that 1 bottle would be more than enough to treat 4 snakes and then some (unless you are dealing with snakes over 10lb). Even other wormers are fairly cheap if you had to treat for stuff other than what panacur usually kills off.

I think your vet was ripping you off.
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PHWyvern

Well, they had their exam for $40, and the fecal for $15, and the gram stain for $25, and then four dewormings at $20 each, plus the hoggy had nematodes so had to have shots, too, at I think $15, and then the follow up fecal...Luckily, he did the dewormings two for one, and on the last two snakes, said the follow-up fecals would be no charge...Hey, the guy has done laser surgery on my bird, twice. If I need a vet, and want him to be familiar with my animals before there's an emergency, I think 30 minutes of his time, to examine and treat two snakes, is at least worth $20 a visit. I took a boxie to him for pneumonia, and he let me do the ten days of shots at home, which really, really helped. He's got a business to run...

Nanci
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*****
1.0 Classic Corn, 0.1 Lavender, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
0.1 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

Plus, he has to do calculations on each visit, because the snakes are growing, and the doseage may potentially change. Plus, if you just blanket treated for rounds and pins and whatnot, without doing a fecal, you'd miss the nematodes! Anyway- it's worth it to me. Although I've always done my own horse/cat/dog dewormings. But they seem simpler, for some reason.

Nanci
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*****
1.0 Classic Corn, 0.1 Lavender, 0.0.1 Cali King, 0.1 Nelson's Milk
1.0 Tricolor Hog, 0.1 Eastern Hog, 1.0 Florida King
0.1 Eastern Box Turtle, 1.0 Florida Box Turtle
0.0.2 Desert Torts, 2.0 Feral Pigeons

>>Plus, he has to do calculations on each visit, because the snakes are growing, and the doseage may potentially change. Plus, if you just blanket treated for rounds and pins and whatnot, without doing a fecal, you'd miss the nematodes! Anyway- it's worth it to me. Although I've always done my own horse/cat/dog dewormings. But they seem simpler, for some reason.
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>

I never said anything about a blanket treatment without an exam.. I merely commented that that the price you quoted was way too astronomical if you paid $200 per snake even when taking into account many vets penchant for hiking up prices for seeing / treating reptiles.
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PHWyvern

Well all I can say about the price of running parasite tests for mine.. I don't even know what it'd be. I do them myself too.
In the past she's charged me 15 bucks for a parasite test.. when I told her I have a microscope and she already knew that I've learned how to do these tests in college she said why am I doing this? She handed me a small bottle of Fecasol & said do it yourself for the rest of them.

My vet is fabulous as far as pricing goes. My partner/sitter/pal who had this turtle repaired got the bill for all this.. and when she did she nearly fainted. She used to work for one of the most expensive vets in this town- she did his billing so she knows exactly what he charges. Her jaw was on the floor when she paid for this.
Office call, anesthesia, acrylic, antibiotics, the vet's time to do the repair- with the vet she'd worked for the bill would have been $280-300 bucks.. with my vet the bill was a whopping 60 bucks.
In 2001 when my dog was rattlesnake bitten I paid that expensive vet for the treatment.. that was before my new vet moved here.
My vet's husband is a vet too- he does the large animal patients, not the exotics.
He told me one day that the reason why their prices are lower is because he knows that (for example with the rattlesnake bite) if you charge too much people will let the dog lay down & die. Charge a lower prices, you'll make money because you'll have a lot of clients- it's true. They are always busy with paying people.
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PHRatz

After not eating for 6 days Janie still pooped in her bath yesterday.
I am really beginning to wonder if June bugs caused her problem.
They've been feasting on them, Janie was too along with everyone else when suddenly she didn't feel well.
She's no longer dehydrated at all, she's getting her fluids as the Dr. ordered plus she's getting a soak twice a day.

When she did poop yesterday evening I grabbed it up & tested it. No parasites but I did find lots & lots of exoskeleton that was June bug colored.
A blockage caused by too much chitin? I'm thinking that maybe this is it because nothing was different in her life until she suddenly was able to eat June bugs- that's the only thing in her life that changed and suddenly she's not feeling well.. seems suspicious to me.

Vet will be back tomorrow.. hopefully we'll get this problem solved this week.
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PHRatz