Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am planning on getting some PTS and they are recent imports. I realize getting imports is not the best idea, but oh well. The guy I am getting them from said he treated them once with Panacur for parasites. Is this safe for them to use? He said I may have to treat them agian for parasites, and that is fine. I saw panacur for sale on petmeds.com and figured it would be cheaper from them than from my vet. I just want to make sure I dont give them anything that would hurt them. Also, as new imports, would they need any protozan parasitical treatment? Thank you, jrbl

There are many people who treat for parasites prophalactically, but I would recommend against it for two reasons:

1 - Different drugs treat different types of parasites. Unless you know precisely what parasites your animal has you won't know if you're using the right drug and thus eliminating the parasites. For example, Panacur (Fenbendazole) is effective against Nematodes, but not Cestodes, Trematodes, Amoebas, etc.

2 - Any drug treatment causes the kidneys and liver to work overtime to purge the drug from the system. Why put your animal through this stress needlessly? Find out what parasites exist and treat only those.

A fecal sample is easy to obtain and almost any vet can examine it for parasites and recommend treatment. This is not cost prohibitive in most places ($7 from my vet in Indiana, $40 from my vet in DC), and if you can afford $100-$300 for an animal plus that much again for a cage, springing for a minor vet fee shouldn't be a hardship.

Once your vet tells you what parasites, if any, you're dealing with, you can order the proper drugs and administer them if the vet treatment is too expensive. This is assuming of course that you have the ability to weigh your animal to the gram and know how to calculate dosages (which you would need to be able to do anyway if you buy the Panacur).

I'd be happy to help you with the last bit (dosages) once you get a fecal exam done.

-Z

n/p

A friend of mine sent me some para-zap to give as a safe deworm to my babyes.Is that product good?It really works with all types of worms?

I'm always leary of products like this. Herbal remedies are not controlled by the FDA or any other regulatory body in the US, so they can pretty much claim whatever they want and no one checks it out.

The Parazap website claims that it's effective against intestinal worms of all varieties and coccidia, this still leaves out other parasites like Amoebas.

Also, black walnut, one of the ingredients is a purgative (induces diarrhea) in large doses.

If you use it I recommend that you use it conservatively and still get regular fecal exams to be certain that your reptile doesn't have any parasites that parazap might "miss".

Personally I wouldn't use it at all, especially not as a preventative as the website recommends. With regular fecal exams your animals should stay healthy and you'll catch parasites before they become abundant. So why subject your animals to yet one more foreign substance that they wouldn't be exposed to in the wild?

-Z

As Zeteki replied- why treat unless your animal needs it? Yes panacur can be obtained without a prescription, and yes- many importers as well as breeders use this and other non-prescription dewormers. Sometimes it may be helpful for the animal (ie they have the parasite that the dewormer is effective against- and the drug is dosed and given correctly by weight), sometimes it may be worthless (dosed too low or wrong schedule- or the animal doesn't have that parasite), and sometimes it may harm the animal (dosed to high or too often, wrong drug -like ivermectin-, or if the animal is dehydrated or it's GI tract is not moving well).
If you are buying some PTS- realize that these are increasingly rare and very unique animals- you will be paying $ for the animal and probably more $ for an appropriate habitat. Please don't skimp on vet care.
Having a 'well pet check' for your new purchase at your vet's as well as a fecal is a good investment. If you want to save a little on drugs, I am sure your vet will be happy to do the math after weighing your PTS, and calculate doses, even if you buy the drug elsewhere. They can also write an Rx for you (even though many dewormers are not prescription) that can be filled by places such as 'petmedexpress'. Online drugs don't always save money though- your PTS will need a fraction of the big tube or packet of powder you will buy shipping.
Cheers, Jess b

I am planning on getting some PTS and they are recent imports. I realize getting imports is not the best idea, but oh well.
The guy I am getting them from said he treated them once with Panacur for parasites. Is this safe for them to use? He said I
may have to treat them agian for parasites, and that is fine. I saw panacur for sale on petmeds.com and figured it would be
cheaper from them than from my vet. I just want to make sure I dont give them anything that would hurt them. Also, as new
imports, would they need any protozan parasitical treatment? Thank you, jrbl

I had no intention of not going to the vet after I bought the skinks, I just figured it would be eaisier and cheaper to administer the dewormer myself. I was planning on getting fecal exams on them. For some reason, it never occured to be that they might not have parasites. Thank you for your help, jrbl