Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey everyone
2 of my baby leopard geckos have not been eating and their stool is sticking to their vents...I looked at their stomachs and they are black, isn't that a sign of crypto?? what should i do? is it too late to save them? any advice? they wont eat, even if i force feed they puke it back up i really dont want them to die and i'd do anything for my babies, but i dont want to take them to a vet if it isn't even worth it..someone please help me asap!
Kris*

Hi Kris,

I've recently went through something very, very similar with a couple of my animals.. (more like 15). At first, I thought that I was being plagued by crypto as well. All my animals were showing the signs (everything but the cottage-cheesy stools), dark runny stools with a very sour smell, lethargy, and with some of them death. I took the animals with stool samples to several vets, and crypto wasn't found. I even had them perform a necropsy on one of them that passed away. Expensive procedure, but well worth it. Crypto wasn't found in any of the tests (tissure or fecal wise). After trying Panacur and flagyl, my vet told me to try Sulfadimethoxine (generic - Albon). And this actually worked within two treatments all of my babies and some of the infected adults started to show signs of improvement. I'm kinda thinking that it was a coccida-like protozoan that was infecting and devastating my colony. But it wasn't crypto. As far as the black stomach goes, well that could just be feces inside the babies gut. You can actually see the poo inside the little animals (I think this is because the skin on the tummy is so thin at first), then when they go poop the dark spot is gone. BUT I've seen animals infected with all kinds of parasites (worms, trichomonas, coccidia) that exhibited the dark blotches on the stomach, though in my experience these blotches were more a blue-green color outlined in a bright red. May just be me, but this is what I've seen. If those were my geckos I'd take'em to a vet ASAP... Who knows, maybe it'll be treatable... I'd wait to blame the problems on Crypto until all other avenues have been checked (bacterial and such). Hope this helped, and good luck.

Richie

Thank you so much! Only one problem , no vets in the area that specialize in herps...Just birds and such..so now what :-/ i dont think theres one within a 50 mile radius..can i get this medicine any other way??

Hi,

You can get Sulfadimethoxine from www.beanfarm.com. Thats where I'll be getting mine from now on.

Hope this helped,
Richie

Get a copy of Understanding Reptile Parasites. If you have access to a good microscope (one with at least 400x magnification) you could do the fecal yourself. If you don't perhaps you could persuade one of the vets in your area to do a fecal as doing a fecal on a lizard is basically the same as doing a fecal on any other organism. You could even lend him the above book so that you could get an ID on the parasite. Hopefully then you could get a perscription for the proper meds (Understanding Reptile Parasites lists the recommended medications and dosages for each type of parasite). Albon is a very strong medication and will do more harm tham good if your leos have something like worms or a bacterial infection rather than coccidia.
-Alice

Also make sure that the vet can perform an acid-fast stain. That and a Necropsy are the only "sure" ways to check for cryptosporidium... It took me several, several vet. calls to find one that could do the stain. Then after that came back, they shipped one of the dead lizards down to a veterinary school that could perform the Necropsy.

Richie

n/p