Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok I am posting this here because the Retic forum sucks and no one helps anyone.

I have a CBB male dwarf retic that is five years old. Here is my original post from that forum (posted on 01/17/06);
Ok I have owned a CBB Dwarf Retic since he was a hatchling, he is now 5 years old. He has always been an extremely healthy snake. Yesterday however he had a little bit of diareah when he deficated. I went to removed him to clean his cage and noticed in the diareah was worms. The worms were about 1.5" long and were a pinkish white color, and round. I would have taken pictures of the nasties but my camera batteries had died. What would have caused a healthy snake to get worms like that? My only thought is that is came from a live rat that he had eat??? I was thinking of trying to treat him with a dose if Panacur?
Any thoughts and ideas would be great.
Thank you

Well seeing as how no one has responded and there is very little activity on that forum I thought I'd give this forum a shot. I have not seen panacur for sale in the local pet/horse stores in my area but there are several other dewormers available. Do you guys have any great recomendations for a dewormer that can be bought at a store????? Also can anyone give doseing????? I'm guessing he weighs between 7-10 lbs maybe less. But I'll weigh him before giving him just to be on the safe side. Thank you all for any help/advice.
P.S. That is the boy. He's bigger now.

Tails With Scales Reptiles

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Christine
Tails With Scales Reptiles
Happiness is biting my snake back!

Flagyl (Metronidazole) and Panacur (Fenbendazole) are the most common dewormers. They work on everything but tape worms. You need to use Droncid (Praziquantel) to specifically treat tapes.

If you don't know what you have treat with all 3. If you know it's not a tape work treat with Flagyl and Panacur.

Here are the dosages all given once and then again in 2 weeks.

Flagyl (Metronidozole) - I use 100 mg/kg

Reptile: 50-100 mg/kg BW PO once; repeat in 2 weeks (Page and Mautino, 1990)

Panacur (Fenbendazole) - I use 100mg/kg

Reptile 125-275 mg/kg BW PO once, may be repeated at 7- to 10-day intervals for 1-2 more treatments (Frye, 1981)
Tortoises: 250 mg/kg BW PO once; repeat in 2 weeks (Page and Mautino, 1990)

Droncid (Praziquantel) - I use 20mg/kg

Reptile 8-20 mg/kg BW IM, PO once; repeat in 14 days (Messonnier, 1996)
10 mg/kg BW IM, PO; up to 30 mg/kg BW PO for trematodes (Clyde, 1996b)

Regards,
Corey

i see it but i not a vet,and the vet i worked with had stroke,so i do you get your hands on some flagyl..thanks for any info...GREG
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Forever Trust in what we are,and nothing else Matters

Panacur you can get from a farm supply store. They use it to worm farm animals. Usually it comes in apple flavour.......which I'm sure tastes extra special when you mix it with rat

Flagyl and Droncid you have to get from your vet.

Regards,
Corey

very nice retic Love the colors.

I recommend taking a fecal to your reptile vet and properly identify what kind of parasite he has and have the proper dosage set for your snake. Too much of a dewormer can be harmful to your snake. Too little and it won't do squat against the parasites he has.
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PHLdyPayne

I've always used Ivermectin by mouth(PO) or injection (Subq or IM). Dose 0.2mg per KG or if PO double it. Worms come from the food the snake eats a lot of times. I like to give my doses PO. When the snake is constricting the prey,just inject it in to the muscle of the rat.
Jesse

Nice yellowhead, is it a Thai? I had some Thai dwarf yellowheads some years ago from VPI that looked yery similar to yours. Awesome snakes, still to big for me though. Those days are gone.

Anyway, to the problem at hand. Honestly, I would wait a bit and observe the snake to see if any treatment is indeed needed. Other than the one case of a loose stool, how has the snake been acting? How is it's weight? Does it refuse to feed? I would personally wait and monitor things for a little while before pumping the snake full of drugs that it may not need. You may be right and the snake is simply passing some nematodes that it picked up from a rat (that cannot really harm or re-infect the snake). I'd wait and make my decision to worm, or not, based on the appearence of the snake, its feeding habits, and bowel movements over the next couple weeks.

Remember, many of these parasites need a specific (non-reptile)host in order to reproduce (and re-infect). In a lot of cases snakes simply pass the prasites that they acquire from their prey after the worms die, and the cycle is broken because the worms can't breed inside of the snake. Most of the exceptions to the rule, parasites that can directly re-infest the reptile, cannot be seen by the naked eye, such as hookworms and protazoa (sp?), so if you can see them, they may simply be roundworms that will be passed without necessitating further treatment.

I am just very careful about pumping drugs into animals that may not need them. I'd hate to hear that your beautiful retic died suddenly of renal failure down the road because at you wanted to get rid of a couple of roundworms that gave it the Hershey squirts once. Good luck.

Will

Hi Will,
Acutally he is a Bali Yellowhead. He is only 7 foot long. He is such a good boy.
As of last night he was acting hungry and was roaming the quarantine cage. His weight looks normal. I'm going to try to feed him a rat tomorrow and see if he eats.
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Christine
Tails With Scales Reptiles
Happiness is biting my snake back!

Check out the Genetics and Care page on Snowballs Ball Pythons There is a link to a comprehensive reptile formulary that all vets use when dosing meds.