Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Iam planning on doseing my sailfin dragon with fenbendazole, I have had a hard time finding it but finaley got in a 10% liquid for my "dogs" wich says to give 2.5mg for every 10lbs, to dose the sailfin all i should have to do is divide it based on his wieght? i have not got him on the scale in a wile but i would says hes 80gs but i will get him on it tommorow so as far as i can tell with my not so great math is iam looking at giveing him a bit less then .05mg, but iam i doing this the wright way or is calculateing diffrent for reptiles or something this small?

Mammalian dosage is different than reptilian and you are just a little off on the final calculation. The standard dog dosage is 250 mg fenbendazole per 10 pounds of body weight. The 10% solution you have is 100 mg per ml. This would equate to a 10-pound dog dosage of 2.5 ml of the 10% solution, not 2.5 mg per 10 pounds. Sorry for the long detour, but now to the dosage for your Sailfin. The standard reptilian dosage is 25 mg per kg, so for an 80 gm lizard, you would be looking at dosing 25 x 0.08 or a total dose of 2 mg. This would be 100 / 2 or 0.02 ml. That is impossible to measure accurately, so what you will need to do with a reptile that small is dilute your 10% liquid by 10 times with distilled water, or as an example, 1 ml of the solution mixed with 10 ml of distilled water. You would then give a dosage of 0.2 ml, or 2 tenths of a ml of your mixed solution to the young Sailfin. Disposable syringes of around 2 or 3 ml volume work best for mixing dilutions or measuring dosages. My only question for you would be why do you think this animal has parasites, and were they properly identified? Just curious,

Kelly

I wasn't going to touch this one;

Kelly, from your response, in dilutions, don't you mix 1ml with 9mls water to make 10 mls total? (your example said to add 1 and 10mls)

Ian

thanks a lot that was very helpfull, no i have not had a fecal done,he has had hard time keeping wieght on, Iam planning to start doseing most of my WC animals with fenbendazole as it seems to be quite safe and probably flagyl as well when i get them, as i dont have a local reptile vet, if there is no improvent after doseing the fenbendazole then i will drive out to a vet though, it was very hard to find the fenbendazole here,in canada, but it was only like $10 for the bottle and a couple more for afew diffrent size suringes, i dont have any catheders left though and i cant find them anywere, but he hisses a lot so i dont think getting it down him will be hard,

With critical dosage calculations as for example antibiotics or other very dosage specific drugs where the exact quantity of the drug is highly important to the pharmacokinetics, you are most definitely correct. With drugs like fenbendazole and other medications where the exact dose is not at all critical, I just tried to keep it simple. I was feeling like I was being to complicated already. The 25 mg/kg standard reptile dosage for fenbendazole is just a very averaged and rounded out figure for the vast majority of reptiles and could easily vary by 25% and remain just as safe and effective. However, for the calculation of most drug dosages you would be absolutely correct.

Kelly

forgot to say i got him on the scale and hes 40g i guess i forgot to hit the tar button before and thats why he was close to 80g the first time, this time i moved the scale a couple times to make sure it was leval and working, i thought he would be more but i guess most of him is tail and dosent wiegh much and he is a bit thin but still eating well.

I'm going to be the jerk by saying what might be the obvious. I don't know you, and my impression is soley from your few posts. I don't think you have the experience or the discipline to be self prescribing and medicating your herps, even if it is "just" deworming.

Take this post as it is. If you re-evaluate yourself and decide that I am right, then bonus, take that trip to the vet and ask lots of questions; make it a learning experience. If I am wrong, then, well, I've been wrong before.

Ian

>>I'm going to be the jerk by saying what might be the obvious. I don't know you, and my impression is soley from your few posts. I don't think you have the experience or the discipline to be self prescribing and medicating your herps, even if it is "just" deworming.
>>
>>Take this post as it is. If you re-evaluate yourself and decide that I am right, then bonus, take that trip to the vet and ask lots of questions; make it a learning experience. If I am wrong, then, well, I've been wrong before.
>>
>>Ian

I am not picking on the OP individually.

I am with Ian. I have people complain about the price of vets and that my vet is only fair with me 'cause....Yeah, 'cause I have been a customer for 25yrs and I listen to them and learn and use them for the welfare of my pets. I am blessed with a vet that does exotics and who will give me enough of any needed thing in quantities appropriate for my 'collection' (my freak show as one vets in the clinic calls it) I have a vet who can do dosing math in his head (much to the amazement of his staff ) and who truly loves living things.
I am also with Ian for another reason. Some folks talk about the safety of meds and chances of it hurting their beasts. I have also seen some of the bad reactions and know how much worse it could be if I were not relying on a great vet to help me. One decimal point off, one line in a syringe....I think people get a little cavalier with their animals health.
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Sonya

I'm not mean. You're just a sissy.
Happy Bunny