Reptile & Amphibian Forums

On the advice on my tortoise vet, and knowing the dosage etc., I'm attemtping to worm several russians, 2 juvenile Aldabras, several smallish leopards, one 75-lb. male sulcata (no probelem, he'll eat anything,) etc. What I failed to discuss with the vet is the "How?". I'm finding it impossible to pry mouths open - if I can even get the head out that far - to get the paste in. Thus far, they all (except the sulcata) seem to be able to smell it hidden in food (even hibiscus flowers,) and won't go near it. I'm using the commonly available horse stuff, with the apple-cinnamon flavoring/smell: safe-guard brand, 100 mg/g (10%) fenbendazole paste. How can this be done?? Have never run into anything in 30+ years of animal keeping quite this frustrating. Should I try the "otherwise-to-be-avoided-as-they'll-get-hooked-on-it" banana? Or what?

I've had success mixing gel Panacur with red prickly pear (cactus) fruit and than spreading the mixture on Romaine lettuce leaves. It's very difficult controlling dosage but the dosage is rough to begin with, and over dosages are uncommon.

I supervise each animal feeding, watching how much each eats and than remove the extra medicated food. Larger torts will eat it right out of my hand when I smear the mixture on the stiff part of the lettuce. This allows more control with dosage.

Good luck,

John

I use Banana, they eat it right up. I think that "avoid Banana at all cost" is a bunch of hooey. I give my Redfoots a wide variety of fruits in moderation including Banana. They've shown no ill effect from it for the 11 years I've had them.
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Tim Madsen

Nobody cares how much you know,
Until they know how much you care.

How do you determine dosage?

This is in no way offering advice or suggestion on this topic, which I'm not qualified to do. That said, on the advice of my vet, I'm going with 50 mg per kg of tortoise. The paste formulation I'm using is 10%, or 100 mg of fenbendazole in each gram of product. So, each gram of product doses 2 kg of tortoise. Obviously you have to be able to weigh very small amounts of the paste, as well as your tortoises. As the others have pointed out, when you hide medication in food, it's hard to know precisely if all of it has been ingested. Good thing this drug has a wide margin of safety.

Thanks to all the others who responded with advice!! Gonna try some banana.

I'm happy that your first sentence include that you've already been to the vet. Too many do-it-yourselfers out there in my opinion. Getting the proper dosing into your tort once you've found the right food to hide it in is easy. If you hide it in a banana, make sure the intended tort eats the whole banana.

If you cannot find somthing to hide it in, you can perhaps ask your vet to talk to a pharmascist to make the drug into somthing that is not apple/cinnamin.