When herp keepers feed their captive herps wild-caught prey, they are also exposing their herps to the risk of Cryptosporidium. Cryptosporidium can be relatively benign in healthy humans and animals, but can be deadly in those who are immunocompromised and otherwise considered to be at high risk for bacterial, viral and parasitic infections. Since captive herps, especially wild-caught ones, are always stressed to some degree, feeding wild-caught prey increases their risk of contracting parasites.
"Melissa Kaplan's
Herp Care Collection
Last updated April 19, 2007
Cryptosporidium: Health Threat to Humans and Reptiles"
Compiled by Melissa Kaplan"
"The problem with quoting that paper is that it only considers diseases that afflict mammals, or as it says, -- "Humans, Cattle, and Pigs". The only brief mention about reptilian crypto is, "Other species of Cryptosporidium infect birds (C. baileyi and C. meleagridis), fish (C. nasorum), reptiles (C. serpentis) and small rodents (C. muris)." Very general info, and not pertinent to this discussion. Pigs, for example, overheat easily and do best in colder weather. Where I live in northern Utah, pigs are most often raised in the fall, winter, and early spring where it's below freezing for 6 months out of the year. It's very possible that C. serpentis isn't as tolerant of colder weather as C. parvum that obviously lives in pigs year round, and since pigs are active in snowy, freezing weather -- unlike snakes."
Pigs are warm blooded and therfore are quite capable I'm sure to keep crypto nice and warm in it's intestines..plus C. parvum is not killed through normal household freezing(cdc crypto factsheet)...I am also sure that through brumation a snakes internal temps probably fall below that of a warm blooded pig.
"Here, however, are two studies that are quoted in Mader as showing that freezing effectively (not weakly or mildly) inactivates Cryptosporidium serpentis -- a snake pathogen (not C. parvum in pigs or humans):"
What temps where used and how long? Did you know there finding new types of crypto in reptiles all the time? If there(sp) are so different in terms of what kills them or inactivates them then why take a chance? Some may die some may not..not good enough for me..
"Cranfield, M.R., T.K. Graczyk, and K. Wright. 1999. Cryptosporidiosis. Bulletin of the Association of Reptile and Amphibian Veterinarians 9(3): 15.
Graczyk, T.K. and M.R. Cranfield. 2000. Cryptosporidium serpentis oocysts and microsporidian spores in stools of captive snakes. Journal of Parasitology 86(2): 413."
I am quite sure most crypto species have similar tolerances for freezing.Most home freezers range between 0c and -15c, for example mine here doesn't get much colder than -5'c..this is not cold enough to be 100% effective. Even the CDC Crypto fact sheet list contaminated ice as a source of infection. Just because one study has one result , two studies or even 10 doesn't make them correct. These studies are attempt to compile data and are not final word.
>>also one point was rasied earlier that crypto is contagious fecal tranmission via oral..
>>it is also high transmissable through flies that feed on the animals waste, these fruit flies gnats , etc.. can easily walk through infected feces and transmitt them when they drink from another water dish etc..
"That's true, but that still falls under the category of fecal-to-oral route, like I said."
Common sense tells you that an uninfected snake cannot infect itself..
>>many breeders have had there collections wiped out by crypto so ask them how rare it is..
"First, no one said crypto is rare, so please refrain from putting words into anyone's mouth. I said, and I quote, "Lastly, only a small percentage of crypto-exposed snakes ever become clinically ill." This statement of mine is paraphrasing an actual study by snake DVMs on snake crypto; once again, I'll quote the actual authors..."The question why only a small percentage of Cryptosporidium-exposed snakes become clinically ill needs to be scientifically addressed." (quoted from Cranfield, M. & Graczyk T. (2006). Cryptosporidiosis. in Mader, D. R. (Ed.). (2006). Reptile Medicine and Surgery [2nd ed.].: pg. 761. St. Louis, MO: Saunders Elsevier.)"
Too me and most PROFESSIONAL breeders an infected snake is as bad as one showing clinical signs of the disease. So the distinction between the two to me is irrelevant.
I wonder what percentage of breeders actually have there animals necropsied and tested..one study found multiple types of never before seen crypto species living in captive reptiles(Genetic Diversity of Cryptosporidium spp. in Captive Reptiles
Lihua Xiao,1* Una M. Ryan,2 Thaddeus K. Graczyk,3 Josef Limor,1 Lixia Li,1 Mark Kombert,4 Randy Junge,4 Irshad M. Sulaiman,1 Ling Zhou,1 Michael J. Arrowood,1 Bøetislav Koudela,5 David Modrý,5 and Altaf A. Lal1)
..We still don't know there effects or how many other types there are..we only now have begun to look.
Also Exposed and Infected can mean 2 totally different things. What was the methods etc..
"Second, your statement is very anecdotal, and saying "go ask Joe Schmo Snake Breeder" what happened to him doesn't hold much water in this discussion. In other words, it's a story, by word of mouth only -- not based on any research, and there are no records to validate any claims. Also, very few breeders have necropsies performed on every single snake that dies in a chronic outbreak, which is the only sure way to confirm what each snake has actually died from. "
"Third, I'll bet no one here can find one single peer-reviewed report or study that shows that crypto has "wiped out" entire collections."
And I doubt you would, most being hobbyist and such..your own statement above just said this didn't it??
"Also, very few breeders have necropsies performed"
So in the end I wouldn't so easily dismiss the experience or advice of your fellow breeders many of which probably been breeding snakes far longer than either of us.
>>One study claims that up to 60% of all leopard gecko collections harbor crypto.
"Okay, what study? And what's your point? Harboring a pathogen is not the same as clinically ill. Two very different things. We are all constantly harboring all sorts of pathogens, but luckily our immune system doesn't succumb to all of them all of the time."
My point is that there are many possible sources of this disease. I wonder how many reptile collections have both species in the same room etc..
"We know that at least 40 different serotypes of Salmonella have been cultured from captive reptiles, and that estimates of reptiles harboring Salmonella spp. can be as high as 94% (from Mader [2006], pg. 1020), yet not even close to that percent of all red-eared sliders or iguanas (two common carriers) are out there sick or dieing from it.
By the way, here's the study on Baltimore Zoo snakes purposefully given 2000 crypto oocysts each to see how many became clinically ill:
Cranfield MR, Ialeggio DM, Noranbrook R, et al.: Cryptosporidiosis, Proceedings of the 7th Avian and Exotic Animal Medicine Symposium, Davis, Calif, 1992."
Is this the study?
Experimental infection of elaphid snakes with Cryptosporidium serpentis (Apicomplexa: Cryptosporidiidae).
Cranfield MR, Graczyk TK.
Baltimore Zoo, Maryland 21217.
The shedding pattern of fecal Cryptosporidium serpentis oocysts, histopathologic changes in the gastric region, and the effect of spiramycin treatment were investigated in 6 experimentally infected, captive black rat (Elaphe obsoleta obsoleta), 4 yellow rat (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata), and 2 corn snakes (Elaphe guttata guttata). Feces were monitored for up to 2 years postinfection (PI). No significant (P > 0.07) differences were observed between expected and observed numbers of PI oocyst-positive feces. Two of 5 control animals acquired natural infections of C. serpentis over the period of study. No morphological differences were observed between oocysts from experimental and natural infections. Clinical signs included postprandial regurgitation in 5 of 13 (38%) snakes, not coinciding with the shedding of fecal oocysts. Midbody swelling and self-cure were not observed. Spiramycin treatment of 4 of 12 experimentally infected animals resulted in negative fecal examinations in 2 snakes and reduced the percentage of oocyst-positive feces in 2 other snakes from 75.5% to 24.5% and from 83.9% to 33.6%. Biopsies and necropsies revealed stages of Cryptosporidium in the gastric mucosa of all spiramycin-treated animals. The gastric mucosa was thickened and edematous, with focal necrosis, mucosal petechiae, and brush hemorrhages. Fibroplasia of lamina propria associated with chronic mucosal inflammation were common. Examination of direct fecal smears was found not to be a reliable technique for diagnosis of cryptosporidial infections in snakes.
sounds pretty bad to me... those results in my collection would be devastating.
>>My vet told me of a large collection here in the Fort Worth area which both snakes and geckos tested positive for crypto, he advized to have the collection put down..I believe there still selling reptiles today.
"I'm not sure what point you're trying to make with this, but once again, "My vet told me..." is very anecdotal...and veterinarians have different reasons per situation to suggest euthanasia; often it's because it would be a whole heck of a lot less expensive than the preferred treatment."
Actually he felt that they posed a contamination risk due to the fact there were selling reptiles and going to shows..
" And there is, by the way, a new preferred treatment for C. serpentis in snakes; hyperimmune bovine colostrum has cleared some infected snakes of the organism (too many to list, but references 16, 17, 36, and 37 on pg. 762 in Mader [2006] show results of this treatment)."
Is this the treatment you refer too?
Currently, there are no effective control strategies against cryptosporidiosis in reptiles. In a small-scale study, it was demonstrated that snakes with clinical and subclinical cryptosporidiosis could be effectively treated with hyper immune bovine colostrum raised against C. parvum. Drug treatment frequently leads only to a clinical improvement or only temporarily terminates the shedding of oocyst into the environment, but it does not eliminate completely the infection, and renewed shedding may occur later on (Pasmans et al. 2007). A common control practice is to euthanize Cryptosporidium-infected snakes, which would prevent the spread of infection to other animals. In the presented case, the animals have been euthanized since they never recovered from the symptoms and the infection makes them not suitable as captive bred any more. Because it is difficult to differentiate pathogenic oocysts from those of nonpathogenic that merely pass through the gastrointestinal tract (Graczyk et al. 1998; Xiao et al. 2004a), the diagnosis-euthanasia control strategy leads to the killing of uninfected animals. Our knowledge about infections in reptiles have been greatly improved in the last two decades but main difficulties (Pasmans et al. 2007) have to be overcome to control and to prevent infections in reptiles." (Molecular identification of a Cryptosporidium saurophilum from corn snake (Elaphe guttata guttata)
Judit Plutzer1 and Panagiotis Karanis1 (1) National Research Center for Protozoan Diseases, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, 080-8555 Obihiro, Hokkaido, Japan )
"Finally, I understand where you're coming from -- that's why I said I wasn't picking on you, because most of us breeders, at some point, have been alarmists concerning crypto. That's our job, as breeders -- to be "pathophobic" in order to protect our animals. My point is that actual research has not shown it to be as ruthless and relentless a bug as we breeders have historically given it credit.."
this is just your opinion..
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com
