Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I took my snake to the vet for what I thought may be a skin condition (see post further down). After a skin scraping (the vet suspected something fungal) he told me that it was hypomelanism and that the rest of the dry/wrinkled skin was due to low humidity levels. That said, he also did a fecal which found pinworms and he treated Zumbi for them and said to bring him back in 10-14 days for the final deworming. But looking on the recent posts here it seems that you don't have to treat pinworms. Is this true? If so, I feel like my vet ripped me off - $140 to be told that the humidity is low (something I was guessing myself) and that my snake has pinworms. Does anyone know if pinworms need to be treated?
ONe other question regarding sterilization - I've totally stripped Zumbi's cage down and soaked everything in Nolvasan (what i usually use to clean the cage). How frequently do i need to do this detailed cleaning when deworming? I don't want him to get reinfected if it is something that needs to be treated.

Treatment of pinworms in snakes is dependent on the diagnosis. Snakes fed mice or rats with pinworms will cause the eggs to show in the feces of the snakes, but mammalian pinworms will be unable to survive in the snake. This can be determined by running a fecal analysis on the rodents. If the snake has an actual pinworm infestation, although it is not usually dangerous, it would probably be a good idea to treat it. Usually fenbendazole at 25 mg/kg once a week for three weeks. Because as you said, pinworms have a direct life cycle and the snake can easily re-infect itself, you will need to keep things extremely clean until the treatment is completed. Good luck.

Kelly