Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I made a post a little while back about my male western hog having a swollen tale. After getting some advice from you guys I inspected closer and found a few small pieces of substrait. I cleaned him up and the swelling began going down shortly after, and he started eating well again. Well a yesterday morning I was checking up on all my snakes and noticed his tail was swelling again. When I got home in the afternoon I gave him another inspection. I found what I though was more substrait, only it turned out to be small worms! They were short and stubby, like pieces of rice but smaller. I do not believe there were any worms visible the first time his tail was swollen, unless they were just much much smaller, because these were easily noticeable. Any advice of info on the subject would be awesome. I couldn't find much on the subject on google.

Get him to a vet asap .

Did they look like this??? Your snake could have pinworms... Somewhat common and easy to treat...

No they weren't that long. Really shot and fat. They were the same proportions as a grain of rice, just much smaller. Luckily I got a call from my vet today and he was able to move my appointment to tomorrow afternoon due to a cancelation. I had a friend tell me just to use Fenbendazole to clear it up. Usually I would just try this but the snake is in pretty bad shape so I am just going to take it to the vet. Better safe than sorry.

You are doing the right thing by not medicating it yourself... While panacur is good for some things, it is not a cure all drug and you can overdose it...

It can also be laral lungworm... In the larval stage, they are shorter and fatter than adults and come out in the feces or right out of the vent without feces...

Have you fed that hognose any toads or other amphibians at all???
Toads are known for carrying lungworm...

The vet will most likely give you panacur to treat the worms...
Let us know how you make out...

Well I took it to the vet and their were no signs of worms. There was however a bad infection in the hemipenes from whatever was there. I got some baytrill and a little pancur for him and the snakes in the rack around him just to be safe. I have to take him and get him checked up and flush out his hemipenes tomorrow and again on monday.

GOOD LUCK ,AND Thanks
for keeping everybody here updated.

I have seen what I assume is some kind of carrion fly larva infecting living animals before.
I had a snake that had a very small open wound that seemed to be healing at first. Then I noticed the wound spreading and while cleaning the area I was able to see a few small fly larva which looked just like you described. These larva were feeding on my still living animal.
I was able to treat the animal and she eventually healed up nicely, but she had a very good scar in the area and it was obvious that some muscle was also missing.
I was told that the only way they can infect an animal is if they have an open wound and that they usually feed on already dead animals and rarely on still living creatures.
Just a thought.
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Steve Perry
North Idaho.