Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today just because I caught a fresh poop I checked my CBB BRB who is 8 months old. I cannot find my reptile parasite book but did find some type of parasite. I think one is possibly crypto, it looked smaller than a regular coccidia under 400x. I only did a float. Some other type of ova is present in significant numbers. They are elongated ovals that look similar to a canine whipworm if the football shape was stretches a little longer and the ends were a bit flattened. They were 5 to 7 times as long as they were wide, there were 3 to 5 per hpf.

My BRB is not ill and this was a random check. She eats well and is growing well. Both the parents have been checked 5 or 6 times and I have found nothing. The adults have not been checked in about 10 months or longer.

I feed fresh killed mice/rats.

I have access to veterinary wormers and was wondering what be best to use.

I have read the suggestions of centrifuge and Lugol's and will do thes things next sample. I will also axiously await more poop from the entire collection to check.

I also have a poosible gravid female and wondered if I need to treat her immediately or wait for a sample. It may be 5 months before she defecates again.

Thank you,
Linda

my first thought was "rodent pinworms." you see them in the #2 of a lot of reptiles that eat live or pre-killed/stunned rodents.
their eggs are also passed with the pooh.

if that is what they are, you have nothing to fear. mouse pinworms don't carry any pathogens that are harmful to ectotherms.

just in case though, you might ask a vet if fenbendazole is right for you...i mean your snake. that particular drug is considered very safe.

good luck, chris o

I did a little more research and found identical pictures of pinworms that positively identify the one ova. So I will not use Panacur at this time.

It worried me yesterday to find so many. Thanks for the reply.
I definately saw 3 coccidia on the whole slide. I don't know how it works in reptiles, but I know in cats/dogs it is basically a self-limiting infection unless the host is immune-compramized. So I'll do nothing but check fecals more frequently so I can decide if I should swith to frozen (I really don't want to).

Linda