Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,
I have been into Leopard Geckos for about a year or so and am exspanding my collection greatly ! I wanted to be able to do a fecal exam myself so I don't run up a high vet bill ! Does anyone know what kind of microscope to get that is relatively inexspensive but still good ? I am also trying to find out what solution to use to float the poop, and what book can I get that will idenify the diffrent worms ? What should I look for when doing the exam ?

Thanks alot,
Nick
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Leopard Geckos

1.0 Tangerine
0.3.3 Hi-Yellow
1.1 Tremper Albino
0.1 Patternless het. Albino

Hopefully 1.2 Super Hypo Tangerine Baldy Carrot-tail from Kirks Herps !

Just aboput any good quality microscope with at least 100x will work. They are available from many sources in many price ranges. Do an internet search...you'll find lots of them. My preference for relatively inexpensive scopes is LW Scientific.

The floatation medium is going to be a sutrated solution with a specific gravity that will allow the eggs to float while fecal particles won't (differential floatation). I use a commercial preparation called Fecasol.

Dr. Richard Klingenberg DVM has a pretty good basic book and identification chart out. The book is called Understanding Reptile Parasites and the chart is called Reptile Parasite Identification Chart and Formulary. They are both available from The Bean Farm www.beanfarm.com

I do random fecal checks on my leos from time to time... thankfully only ever found something "interesting" once. I have the book that oldherper mentions and a few others too, but found it very difficult to ID what I'd found (turned out to be pinworms)... So, what I do now, is just random checks and if I ever find anything again, take the slide to a vet and get them to ID it for me.. Thing is, if you find anything, the vet will need to treat it anyway, so the vet may aswell also see the slide to confirm what you have found.

The flotation solution I use is the one suggested in the book mentioned above.. dilute as much sugar as you can in some warm water.

I also have some photos on my webpage to help IDing... there are not many there yet, but I have more to upload, which I hope to do in the next week or so, and will add to it whenever I find images I can use, or find anything myself to get photos of.

http://www.thegeckospot.com/fecal.html

(If anyone would like to contribute to the photos I would be most grateful).

Best wishes,
Pauline
The Gecko Spot, UK

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Visit The Gecko Spot (United Kingdom) for gecko information