Reptile & Amphibian Forums

An acquaintance on mine asked me to treat his 3 sulcatas with Panacur, which he purchased off the internet when he saw something moving in one of the tortoise's droppings. This is someone I had previously told treating tortoises on your own was not as hard as some people believed, so he called me on it.

These were the first sulcatas I have ever tube-fed, and I can tell you they are MUCH harder than the other species I have done. The first two, which were about 13 inches long, were tough, but I eventually got them done with patience and a just a little strong-arming. The third, who by now I KNEW was going to be real test for me, is well over a foot and a half in length, and was absolute murder. The hardest part to tubing is getting the animal to bring it's head out far enough to grab it BEHIND the jawbone. If you grab them any higher up, even on the jawbone itself, it is next to impossible to get them to open their mouths. This guy would not bring his head out for any reason once he knew what I was trying to do because of a couple of failed attempts to grab his head. I ended up having to put him in water that covered his head, and he still took forever to come out. It took me almost a half hour of battling to finally get ahold of his head, and then it was unbelievably hard to get his mouth open. It was like a giant clam crazy-glued shut.

I finally had to use a flattened stick to pry it open and then had my friend hold the stick as I worked the tube down the monster's throat. It was frustrating to say the least, and I had that creature on my lap for a good 45 minutes or more. I had told him to use natural de-wormers on the food, but he said he couldn't find any place that carried them, and I know he was convinced that only the panacur would work anyway, like most people are. He wants to repeat the treatment in a couple of weeks, so I guess I'll have to lift weights or something to get ready for the Posessed One. Or maybe not answer my phone!

I can't help but wonder why you are force feeding a sulcata that is strong enough to prevent you from getting at it's head. Surely you can find a food that it likes and mix the medication in that.
Hey... I found this food that sulcatas just absolutely luuuuuuuvvvv and it never fails to get them to consume it on their own. It's great for adding meds.
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Ed
Tortoise_Keepers-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Trying to keep the fun in Chelonian care

My buddy said that he did in fact try to put the Panacur on some apple and also on some lettuce, but they would only take one small mouthfull, not swallow much of it, and then ignore the food. Even later, if they saw the white stuff on the food, they wouldn't touch it.

At least that's what HE told me. He may have just wanted to see me strugle with the beasts.

If I had my way, people would put black walnut or wormwood on some lettuce or mashed apple and do it the natural way. Yes, I said FOOD....NOT Mazuri! Okay, I will admit that maybe Mazuri is good for that if it gets them to swallow the medicine. IF and ONLY then.

np

but there's no reason to force that either. A bit of patience
and some green peppers or banana could have hidden that stuff.
How would they get tapeworms, are they eating frogs? Panacur
doesn't work on them anyway. I used feline droncit compounded
down for a monitor lizard once with tape.

YOU try getting a struggling tortoise's mouth open with a rubber spatula! Sure. That's like trying to open a locked suitcase with a feather.

Like I said, it wasn't tapeworms. And what do frogs have to do with it? Tapeworms do not require an intermediate host.

Some do and some don't.

Of course you wouldn't let me "manhandle" your precious baby. You wouldn't want to have to tear Teddy away from the soap operas and a manicure session.

I you had actually read what I wrote, instead of just mouthing off, you would see that the tortoises would not eat the medication on food.

I agree with Ed 100% here. If tortoises are eating medicating is so simple. I have treated mine by mixing the meds into a moistened ball of that M-word food that gets Ed in trouble everytime he mentions it.

Also, if you giving panacur shouldn't you be sure what kind of parasite you treating before you dose the animal? It's just that you never mentioned that you positively id'ed what was in the stool.
Perhaps you might suggest that your friend take the torts to a vet for proper diagnosis rather than just dosing them again.

Steve

Also did not mean to imply that YOU don't know what you are doing regarding medicating torts. I just was wondering if you had positively id'ed what kind of parasite they had.

Like I said, according to what I was told, they would not eat the panacur on food. Some tortoises are just like that. Some will eat it, others won't.

As far as the exact species of parasite, it doesn't matter as long as you know the family it is in. Panacur is a very broad-spectrum paracide that will kill virtually any kind of true worm. With the description I was given, it seemed they could only be true worms and I guarantee you the Panacur killed them. Tapeworms are in a family called the segmented worms, which are not true worms. I meant to put in my original post that I knew they were worms that Panacur would kill, but I guess I neglected to do so. I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition! (Monty Python referrence.)

The guy asked me to treat them because he would NOT take them to the vet and he did NOT believe in the herbal treatments, and he said they would NOT eat the stuff on food. So I treated them. It's easy to second-guess when you weren't involved in the situation.

Who second guess YOU and who was challenging YOU? I even said in the second part of the thread that I did not mean to imply that you did not know what you where doing. Thanks for filling in the details too. Which would have avoided the the Spanish inquisition is the first place I suppose. You tried to help someone out -- that's great. But frankly from what you said your friend has no business having the animal in the first place if he is not going to take to the vet. I have 70 parrots and 20 turtles and torts and if there is something that I have not dealt with with a vet previously and know how to do myself I will take the animal to a vet and rely on my friends to handle it.
Maybe your friend has a lot of animals or whatever I don't know their entire situation but if they just DON'T want to take it to the vet as you said then they have no business owning it.

"NO ONE EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!....... "

Use to love Monty Python!!

Our chief weapons are surprise, fear, and a fanatical devotion to the Pope!

Kewl -- someone who remembers this stuff!!

Yeah, you're right. I could have avoided the whole thing by saying what the parasites were to begin with. I meant to do it later in the post but just plain forgot to do so. Absent-minded me.

I agree with you that this guy probably is better off without any pets. Besides the tortoises, he also has a dog and he had to make a small fenced-off area for the torts because the dog always bothered them. The dog is a large psycho akita and it still gets into the tortoises area all the time anyway. The tortoises actually belong to his son and were given to the kid as babies, but the kid got tired of them and doesn't take care of them at all. They are in an area about 15'X 10', which I think is too small for 3 mid-sized sulcatas. I think the only reason he wanted to treat the torts is because he is afraid the dog would get the worms too. I didn't tell him reptile parasites probably could not survive in a dog so he would let me treat the tortoises.

70 parrots?! What type of parrots do you have? I used to raise all kinds of parrots, but now I mostly have finches and doves and some parrotlets.

I have retired all my larger breeding pairs just this year. Amazons (4 species) Pionus (2 species). I have african greys, Macaws and Eclectus. I still am raising the small stuff. Cockatiels, Princess of Wales Parakeets and Rosie Bourkes. I just can't keep up the pace of a full time job, working with Turtlehomes and breeding birds. Plus we have ducks and chickens too in the yard. Now all the big birds are being flighted in large indoor aviaries and trying to learn good social skill after years of being in single breeding cages. (a slow process)

one of mine won't. Luckily, he is small, so it's not hard to get his mouth open. It's surprising, though, how much jaw strength even a tiny (32g) tortoise has.
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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
0.0.2 Hermann's Tortoises
plus my kids' herps:
0.0.1 California King Snake
1.0 Mexican Rosy Boa
0.1 Leopard Gecko

It is amazing. Trying to get a torts mouth open is alot harder than MOST aquatics. (some like snappers I frankly would not put my fingers near!!). The smallest tort can just clamp it shut and forget it!! Fortunately, mine all eat like hogs and I can coat meds on anything (I choose the Mazuri or a grape or even small peice of banana because I know these are things that I can feed that will be eaten in one bite and get all the meds in).

>I had told him to use natural de-wormers on the food...

Your confidence level on these natural de-wormers is good?

>...but he said he couldn't find any place that carried them

I see one offered on KSclassifieds called "Parazap;" does it work well? What do you recommend?

Just curious! Thanks!

>I had told him to use natural de-wormers on the food...

Your confidence level on these natural de-wormers is good?

>...but he said he couldn't find any place that carried them

I see one offered on KSclassifieds called "Parazap;" does it work well? What do you recommend?
At this point my confidence level is high with the natural parasite killing herbs.

I have never heard of "Parazap?" Do you know what the active ingredient is? I recommend black walnut tincture and/or wormwood. Both are availabe off the internet and some health food stores. I have taken the black walnut myself just as a precaution. The next day after I took it, I felt a bit nauseous, but the book I read on natural herbs said that is normal because the parasites have died and are decomposing in your intestines. You have to wait to expell or absorb them and then you will feel better. I felt great after the nausea went away. The stomach cramps I used to get on occasion prior to that totally disappeared.

I just checked the website, and lo and behold, "Para-Zap is a unique combination of several natural ingredients targeted towards specific problems. Two of the main ingredients are wormwood and black walnut. Wormwood has been used medicinally to expel various types of intestinal worms for over 3500 years. Black walnut works against tapeworms, but is included because it's one of the mildest and surest laxatives, causing no nausea, irritation, or pain. The idea is to kill the worms/eggs, and then expel them."

hmmmm, maybe your nausea was psychosomatic!
Thanks for the info!

If what your friend saw moving in the fecal sample were tapeworm proglottids, then all of you hard work may have been for not! Panacur does not work well against tapeworms. You would need Droncit (praziquantel). Or you could try the balck walnut. I personally do not have experience with that and tapeworms. I have seen it be effective against pinworms, but that is all.
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Stacey

I know that Panacur is not very effective against tapeworms, and these weren't tapeworms apparently. I didn't see the parasites because the specimen had already been thrown away, but he said he got a glimpse of them after he saw the movement in the feces. He said he didn't really look too closely (he's kind of a wimpy and squeamish fellow) but from what he could see, they seemed to be tiny threadlike white or light tannish worms less than 1/2 of an inch long. He said there were only a few moving and quite a few dead which would tend to indicate a pretty bad infestation. Not surprising since he keeps all three of them in a pretty small aread in his yard where they can easily keep re-infecting each other.