Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My little Russian Molly has worms in her poo... can you guys tell me more about Pancure or other deworming products I can use on her to help her get rid of them?

Also, I've noticed tiny (I mean miniscule) bugs in the repti-bark substrate I put her in. Is that bad? Will it hurt her?

Do you live by another tortoise keeper? It is always a good idea to get the guidence of an experienced keeper or a vet when you are dealing with parasites for the first time. While the medications you are talking about do have a good margin of error you can do some harm depending on the general health of the animal.
If it's got worms there is a good chance that it has other parasites which Fenbendazole(Panacur) will not touch. It would be a good idea to take it to a vet and take notes for when it happens again.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

If your vet is not an experienced in treating herps, do not allow her to give ivermectin to your tort!

I was given a card of a local vet that specializes in reps by Fins&Skins (the people I bought my geckos from), but we haven't been yet. It's the holidays and nobody is open.

To be honest, I am also pretty broke. Does anybody know how much it generally costs for a checkup and deworming? I'll spend what I have to, I just want to be prepared for the worse.

I am a full time college student with a full time college students budget. (Although I might be able to worm (pun intended) some extra $$ out of my husband.)

She seems healthy otherwise... eats great, is active when I take her out, eyes are bright...

I am in East Tennessee... (Knoxville Area)

Does anybody know any other good vets for Russians (or even Leopard Gecks) in my area?

1.1.0 Whites Tree Frogs
0.0.2 Juvy Leopard Gecks
0.1.0 Russian Tort
1.1.0 Siamese and domestic cats (respectively)
0.1.0 Golden Ret.
1.0.0 Midas Cichlid
20.25.50 misc. fish

I spent about $80 for my first exam, fecal check, and Panacur, but I'm in California and your area is probably much less. If you call the vet's office first, they'll let you know the cost. I think in some areas you don't have to have an exam first, but here you do. You really do need to see the vet to get the correct dosage for your tortoise.

"Understanding Reptile Parasites" is a handy book to have, and it doesn't cost much.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

Does the book you mentioned tell you how to treat the reptiles yourself?

It gives the medication/dosages normally prescribed, so I guess you could use it for home treatment if you were comfortable enough with your math skills. I got it just to use as a backup, so I could verify what the vet was telling me (considering how many "herp" vets there are who don't know what they're doing, not a bad idea).

You can order it from amazon.com, and I believe The Bean Farm has it, too. I think The Bean Farm also has a chart showing photos of various parasites, if you do your own floats.
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Sohni
Northern California

0.1 Baja de L.A. Rosy Boa
0.1 Okeetee Corn Snake
1.1 Rubber Boas
1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.0.1 Hermann's Tortoise
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

The author is Roger Klingenberg DVM and it was originally produced by what is now known Advanced Vivarium Systems (or something like that) Dr. Klingenberg is one of those old time herpers. Many of the dosages you see for stuff like Panacur, Metronidazole and Baytril he played a big part in establishing for herps.
He also put out this neat little chart called Reptile Parasite Identification Chart and Formulary.
Now, if you are a worrier I'd highly suggest you don't get into this topic because it will drive you nuts when you learn just how much is out there.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

Different kinds of worms respond to different treatments. I wouldnt stress your tort by treating it with some med that may not work. A natural way to treat your tort would be to give it pumpkin, pumpkin has a natural de-worming compound in it. The name escapes me right now. see if that works before experimenting on your tort

Ground pumpkin seed will kill some parasites, but there are other, much more effective natural treatments. Cloves, like you can get from any market and are used for flavoring hams and other meats, are extremely toxic to parasitic worms. ANY worms. Same with wormwood tincture, which comes from the leaves of the wormwood tree and can be found in health food stores. Just a little bit will kill just about any parasite except for tapeworms. Since it is usually parasites other than tapeworms which plague tortoises, the wormwood or cloves, or both given together, will be very effective for parasite control.

I have studied the topic of parasites quite a bit since I first became fascinated with them as a child. Most of them are host- specific, meaning they can only live in a certain species of animal and will eventually die in the wrong host. As I said before, almost all humans carry at least one, and often several different species of parasites. Human-specific tapeworms, porcine tapeworms, liver flukes, hookworms. I never trusted the harsh drugs used to kill them in animals AND in humans. There can be many side affects of the treatment.

If you can get the animal to ingest the herbs somehow, that is a good way to treat, but they may not want to eat something as nasty tasting as cloves. Treating your tortoise yourself is really not hard at all. You'll need a bird handfeeding syringe, some aquarium tubing, and steady hands. If anyone is interested, I can provide details of how to do it. I treat all my tortoises myself, and it isn't as hard as most people think.

Mike

Some have posted on this site to use "just the seeds" and some have said "the pumpkin flesh". Which is it? And as far as the cloves do you mean the whole little black seed pods? Or ground clove spice. And how do you get the tortoises to eat this? Must it be disguised in some fashion in their food? Or will they find it appealing by itself? Thanks.

I believe it is the flesh of the pumpkin that contains the chemical that acts like an antiparasite drug. It came up on one of the other lists that the seeds are worthless. I also believe that the WCT website has a pretty good explaination of the use of pumpkin rinds.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

The flesh has manitol...

the seeds have cucurbitine...also an effective wormer

The compound I am familar is in the flesh of the pumkin.

It is the pumpkin seeds which contain the anti-parasitic substance. I've never heard of any theraputic affect from the flesh.

I had to consult my parasite book to refresh my memory about the herbal treatments. The truly best treatment for the adult worms or other parasites is actually black walnut, which I forgot to mention yesterday. The reason you use migh want to use cloves too is because of it's parasite egg-killing properties. Cloves are not as good at killing the adult worms, but excellent for the eggs. Black walnut can be ordered online, or found in most health food stores.

You must use the WHOLE cloves, because they will still contain the substance that kills the worms and eggs. When the cloves are ground up, they will begin to lose this substance over time and it is impossible to tell how long ago the ground cloves in the store were ground up. You take the whole cloves and ground them up yourself. I have found that a blender works great for this. It will ground the cloves into a fine powder if you put it on the highest setting. You can then sprinkle some of the powder onto the tortoises food, just as you would a calcium supplement. A good sized pinch between the forefinger and thumb mixed up into moist lettuce will do it. Fruit works good too if your tort is reluctant to eat it because it masks the flavor better. The larger the tortoise, the more you want to give them. Don't worry about overdosing, that would be very hard to do with cloves, unlike some chemical treatments. Some tortoises will eat the treated fruit or lettuce as if they do not even know it is there. Some will eat it only after they are very hungry, maybe taking a couple of days. There are some that will not eat it no matter what. In these cases, you must tube-feed it, or tube-feed black walnut or wormwood, which I will describe in my next post. As I said, the wormwood or the black walnut won't kill the eggs in the tortoises body, and Panacur or the other harsh chemical drugs won't kill eggs either. If you use the wormwood or walnut, you need to re-treat a few times to get all the eggs after they hatch.

About 5 days after you treat, re-treat to kill any parasites that were missed. This treatment can then be done as a maintenence every year or two years. It works great in people too, but you use empty gel capsules to take it since it tastes so strong and yucky.

When I say "black walnut," it is actually a tincture (liquid) made from the green husks of black walnuts. It is highly poisonous to any insect or worm.

the seeds have a much higher concentration, due to the lower water content among other things. It is much easier to add flesh to its diet

Yes, please give me more information. I still think I will take her to vet this time since she is new, but I am very interested in learning to do some of it naturally and at home.

I described how to feed the cloves in a previous post. For the wormwood or black walnut (I would use the walnut idealy) you need to tube-feed because it is in liquid form and it may be hard to get the tortoise to drink it. You can try, it you think it is ready to drink some water.

If you do need to tubefeed, you need a handfeeding syringe for birds (available at any pet store,) and a lenth of aquarium hose. I'm told dog catheter will work too, but I've never tried it.

To tube feed, you hold the tortoise upright or on it's back and you measure a length of tubing from the top of the plastron to the bottom of the abdominal scute. (The abdomianl scute is the section of large scutes right in the middle of the animal's midsection.) That will make it just long enough to enter the stomach. Then attach the tubing to the syringe. Holding the tortoise in an upright position on your lap (a towell is good in case of accidents,) hold it behind the jaw with your left hand and use your right hand to to pull down on it's lower jaw. It will try to withdraw it's head into it's shell, but your fingers should prevent it from going in all the way. Pull it's head out a little if it goes to far in. After the mouth comes open, GENTLY feed the tube along the roof of the mouth down into the stomach and depress the syringe so that all of the fluid goes into the tortoise. The whole procedure is much easier with 2 people but with practice, 1 can do it easily.

It depends on the size of the animal how much you use of the wormwood or black walnut. For a 3 or 4 inch animal, use about 3 drops in about a quarter-cup of water. 4 or 5 inch tortoise, 3 or 4 drops, etc on up. If the tortoise shows no bad effects, you can increase the dosage by a drop or two when you re-treat in 5 days. I have never seen an adverse reaction, but it is possible I suppose (but it is more likely with Panacur,) so don't overdo it on the first treatment. Sometimes the tortoise will seem a bit lethargic or sickly a few days after treatment. This is because it now has dead critters inside of it that are beginning to rot and putrify. It should expel or absorb them before too long.

If a person doesn't feel comfortable doing this, then they shouldn't try it, but it is really rather easy once you get your feet wet and try it.

I will post a picture in the next day or two showing just how to measure the tubing. Let me know if you have any more questions or if my instructions were lousy.

Posted by: microbiologist at Sat Nov 29 23:03:17 2003 [
"Different kinds of worms respond to different treatments. I wouldnt stress your tort by treating it with some med that may not work. A natural way to treat your tort would be to give it pumpkin, pumpkin has a natural de-worming compound in it. The name escapes me right now. see if that works before experimenting on your tort"

Yes different kinds of worms and parasites require different treatment. If worms are visiable in fecal matter than a high load is present and a vet visit is abosolutely needed for diagnoses and proper medical treatment. Pumpkin is a natural
de-wormer, but should only be used as a preventative measure, not where a high burden is present.

Got a vet appointment for this coming Tuesday with vet that specializes in reptiles and exotics. Hopefully he will know what he is doing and fix her problem. I'll let everybody know what happens Tuesday.