Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all,

I know we're nearly done with that time of year but I thought I'd throw this out there anyway. At the institution I work at we had really good success with artificial hibernation of cornutum (modified dorm fridge) last winter and I was wondering if anybody else has ever done this. I consider it a success because they lost so little weight over the course of the winter (3 grams or 8% for the female and 6.5 grams or 15% of body weight for the male). I read somewhere that 25-35% was normal.
They also picked up eating early on last spring and were able to pack on lots of weight before hibernation this winter.

We'll be bringing them out of hibernation in the next 4 weeks or so which brings me to my next topic. I suspect our newer psychotic female "Maude" still has nematodes but I can't prove it and I was wondering if anybody else has had a similar experience to the one we've had with her. We got her in during the middle of last summer and she had nematodes in her stools. After being treated for these over about 6 weeks and having mutiple clean fecals she was presumed better. She never had any more worms show up in her fecals but her eating and weight gain behavior still disturb me greatly. She was losing weight on 80 ants per day so we upped her to 150 basically giving her as much as she would eat. She did gain some weight on this regimen but it seemed like a very small gain considering her intake. She ate as much as our other 3 lizards combined and gained only a few grams. She ate well into the middle of October, a good 1-2 months after the other lizards had stopped eating. We fasted her 2 weeks before hibernating her and in that time she lost 10.5 grams (20 % of body weight). I can see no other explanation for this than that she still has the parasite but if she does have a parasite why wasn't it showing up in her fecals?

Any ideas?

Aaron

Listen I am not a biologist nor have vet orientation however I might suggest this. First of all each hibernation is unique, there could be other factors such as hydration that could be an issue here, but with the little info you have given I might suggest that the nematoes you mention have the life cycle in the ants that they eat, in spite of stool being cleared it is possible that eggs were still left in the tract and over the hiberation period grew and are affecting your lizard. ALso I live outside of San Antonio and we have a very healthy population of horned lizards out here. I have often observed that when horned lizards come out of hibernation, my experience here seems to be that the first shows are often females and they are skinny, I mean the legs are skinny and the front and side view is skinny, yet hthe males that I have found seem more robust. I know this is unscientific and just observation and may not apply, but many of these lizards kept in captivity are feed crickets which also can cause the same as well. I have taken the liberty to give you a link that went to Lester Milroy who is very knowlegable about horned lizards and the lizards described there went down quickly. I have had a few of my horned lizards die within 3 days of slowing down with little or no evidence of any illness until it was too late. Please read this discription of an incident several years ago.....
http://forum.kingsnake.com/horned/messages/2497.html Another issue to consider, is you don't say at what temps they were hiberated at, but I have also found that some people hibernate there animals at to low of a temprature. When there is a warm up they end up getting a respitory infection. I have experienced this myself with respect to Uromastyx, I fully know they are not horned lizards, but the wieght lose difference is certianly pernounced. Is there any possibility that stress has effected the animal as well. I have seen animals get very skinny that were stressing out when an alpha male or some other issue caused such a stress. In this case if shes' down still for hibernation it seems pretty convincingly to me that she has retained the parasites possibly some time down the road after feeding her and considering her clean. I also believe that these worms if bad can get inot other organs and tissue so while the GI tract may have shown clear there is the possibility of some retention...This is best that I can do with your question, I could ask other specific infornmation, but it looks like you have an issue here that is not going away and needs attention.....Hope some of this musing helps.......Cheers! Hopefully one of the other's will respond........
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Phrynosoma.com

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signature file edited. [phw 11/14/04]

using a fridge to hibernate is not uncommon. I know people who do this with other herps. I just don't know anyone else who does it with HLs specifically.

yes, these parasites are commonly found in harvester ants. I would not assume that they have left the GI tract based alone on the fact that they don't show up in the scat. a vital function of the parasite is to find a way to stay in the host. so you may have some time go by without any passing. perhaps your initial treatments greatly reduced their numbers to the point that more may not be seen until the lizard gets "gut loaded" with them again.

what specific treatment(s) did you use?

Mick

Thanks a lot for your input on this matter.

I hope other horned lizard enthusiasts confirming the possibility that she has parasites will help me convince my superiors to let me isolate her this year. At least for a while. The last thing I need is 4 lizards with parasites to worry about. This of course assumes that she comes out of hibernation OK. I know she was still alive as of the middle of January because she switched positions inside the hibernaculum. I guess we'll know in a couple of weeks!

Another explanation of her pattern of consumption and weight loss could be metabolic problems. Has anybody seen anything like this in HLs?

Mick, you asked as to the specific treatments the lizard got for the parasites. I don't know the answer to that as she was treated while still in quarantine by the vet staff. I will try to find out. What is usually used?

Aaron

my best recommendation...Panacur ( Febendazole ) orally 50-100 mg/ per kg body weight repeated after about 2 weeks; Panacur is considered effective against nematodes, and, very safe when not overdosed.

Ivermectin ( Ivomec ) or ( Equvalan ) intermuscular injection is also sometimes used, recommended no more than .2mg/per kg in "some" snakes & lizards & .025mg/ per kg. in "some" turtles. dosage and species recommendations are varied. this drug is considered "use caution" on many reptiles, and unsafe, or outright lethal in dogs, box turtles, tortoises, & indigo snakes. it's full effects on different reptiles is not known. primarily used to treat certain nematodes in farm animals. outside of specific clinical details of effects on Family Iguanidae, I would not recommend using!

if it wasn't done with the previous scat ( fecal ) examinations, I would recommend a floatation fecal test.
( soaking the sample in saline & observing whether parasite eggs float to surface of solution. ) and/or a smear microscope examination. I'm sure if a reptile vet performed the exam
one of these was done. something more than a naked eye inspection may be required to be sure the parasite is gone.

Reptoman offered that the parasite might have moved from the GI tract. I'm not sure on whether the ones common in the GI tract indeed move throughout the animal, but, there may be more than one specific of nematode present in the animal affecting its health/metabolism. they are as follows;

NEMATODES

*ASCARIDS/ All/ Gastric mucosa
*RHABDITIDA/ All, esp. Varanid Lizards/ Lungs
*STRONGYLOIDS/ All/ Esophagus, Intestine
ACANTHOCEPALINS/ Chelonians/ Small Intestine
*FILARIDS/ All/ Blood stream
*PENTASTOMIASIS/ All, esp. Varanid Lizards/ Lungs, Esophagus
*OXYURIDS/ Lizards, Chelonians, Some snakes/ Lower intestine
*CAPILLARIA & EUSTRONGYLIDES/ Snakes, Lizards, Chelonians/ Liver, Bile Duct

as you can see, all but one of these listed could be a possibility. there are also parasites other than nematodes,
and other health conditions which could be to blame. sometimes
other causes are misdiagnosed as a possible parasite and vise versa. but based on the fact that intestinal parasites were present in previous samples, a more vigorous examination and possible retreatment to this end would be in order.

Mick

Mack,

Unfortunately I was unable to find out the parasite treatment our lizard received at our hospital. Our vet staff does have extensive experience with reptiles, mostly iguanas and turtles but also other things as well.

Thanks in no small part to your input, we are able to keep the lizrd of concern isolated from the rest of the group until she shows metabolic normality. My supervisor also indicated that we would probably have the vets treat her again just to be sure even if no parasites showed in the fecals.

We brought everybody out of the fridge to our outdoor enclosure last week and all 4 have at least made an appearance, though the majority quickly reburied- nighttime temps probably still too cold. Our small male is totally up and drinking up a storm. This is great because he was so skiddish last year he would almost never drink. His weight is also very encouraging. He only lost 0.2g of reserves, the rest of his losses were due to water loss.

Aaron

great! glad to hear the information helped.
your vet staff having experience with iguanas
is a good starting place for horned lizards.
they are in the same family ( Iguanidae ).
much of that medical knowledge is directly
transferable to horned lizards in some specific
situations. some husbandry issues as diet
and environmental housing conditions obviously
don't apply. but, in fact, much of Melissa Kaplan's
material on iguanas has been useful to me.
if you're not familiar with her, here's a link:
http://www.anapsid.org
or
http://www.anapsid.org/iguana/index.html

Mick