Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am going to be homeschooling Riley next year (7th grade). Cell biology is part of the curriculum, and I figure, hey, why not kill two birds with one stone and teach him how to use a microscope and do fecal floats? I have "Understanding Reptile Parasites" and of course I have an abundance of feces of various kinds (hahaha). I'm wondering how many of you do your own floats, and what kind of microscopes do you have? Are there any websites out there that actually have photos of magnified parasites, rather than just drawings?

Thanks for your help!
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Jeannie

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa (Bella)
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake (Bess)
1.1 Rubber Boas (Isaiah & Esther)
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise (Moxie)
1.0 Leopard Gecko (George)
2.0 adopted DSH Cats (Amos & Silas)
1.0 rescued English Springer Spaniel (Jimmy)
and...
2.0 Kids w/ 0.0.1 California King Snake (Rex), 0.1 Leopard Gecko (Geico), 1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa (Lucas)
1.0 Husband (no pets, just us, lol)

Jeanne,

forum.kingsnake.com/health/messages/5998.html

Simple fecal floats are very easy to do, it's the identification that you may need help on. My wife's a vet tech and she helps me. I posted this a few months ago from a fecal I did. If you've not had them done in quite a while and feed crickets, pay close attention to the first couple pictures.

I use an Olympus CH-2 microscope I got from a guy who refurbs them. This scope is real easy to come by because many med students use them. Stick to a name brand like - Nikon, Olympus, Zeiss, and one other I can't remember the name right now. You'll be much happier.

These pics were taken by simply putting my Nikon 995 up to one of the eyepieces. If you send me an email, I'll give you the contact info for the guy I got my microscope from. You can find them on ebay, but you really can't tell how good they are. I bought one that I thought was in 'excellent' shape and it's lenses were all messed up and I was stuck with the shipping bill getting it back to the guy. Oh well, live and learn.

Good luck.
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Rob Jenkins
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