I am on board with treating. At least in a trial period (which will likely last a few years). I spoke with a friend of mine at ASU who manages a lot of reptiles both at home and at work. His regimen is once a year, or as needed. He also mentioned that this may cause a slight strain on liver and kidney function, so hydration is important. Especially with desert species, as they don't tend to "flush" their systems as frequently as other reptiles or amphibians do. He recommended soaking. He also mentioned it may take weeks for some pests to be eliminated, so he recommended not doing this too close to hibernation as this cure could be worse than the disease in that case. Dead parasites in a hibernating reptile will likely cause death.
So I am going to begin some testing of this. I think it's a good idea. I'll take notes and photos and post it to www.phrynosoma.org and I welcome any others who want to do similar work to submit it for posting.

Below is the previous post I made:

""(FS)Nematodes are part of the natural cycle outside of captivity where HLs roam in a much larger home range, are not subject to captive stress on sometimes a daily basis in smaller quarters like aquariums or even outdoor pens, and are not subjected to feeding close quarters all the time in the same area they and others have been defecating in. Captive HLs reside in close proximity to their own feces, even in outdoor enclosures, which increases the chance many fold that they will reinfect themselves or infect others."

(Mark)I disagree on this point to some extent. I have had the opportunity to observe natural solare habitat including the lizards behaviors and the ants they consume. It is very typical here to find groupings of scat within 15 feet of an ant nest, and these usually within a few feet of each other. So it would appear the lizard is sleeping nearby and will more or less follow the same feeding/defecating routine for several days. As you know they will lick at objects nearby. So they are in close proximity to their own feces on a regular basis. This also puts the feces and thereby the expelled worms well within the foraging patterns of the nearby ant nest. The loop is very tight. One could make an argument that a well maintained indoor enclosure might actually be cleaner than this wild scenario."

So we were talking about both indoor and outdoor enclosures here. But the specific point I made at the end is about indoor cages. No big deal.

It is an interesting conversation though. To be honest I hadn't given a ton of directed thought at wild HL and their eating / defecating patterns until this came up. What I typically see is a pattern of defecation at a periphery of about 15 feet from a rogusus mound. These will be in a relatively small grouping, usually not more than 5 feet around, and often much closer. If it is fresh enough you can actually see the age difference between them, and it seems to be that they are a day apart. This my be near one large rugosus nest, or between two or three.
As you know, solare tend to defecate once they warm up in the morning. In the wild they have two well defined feeding times. In the morning, and then again in late evening, up until there is no more daylight in the sky.
It is pure conjecture on our part (at least on my part) that HLs might become reinfected by sniffing (licking) at their feces. It seems reasonable, but I know of no studies. We do know that the ants are a part of the actual parasitic cycle. So my point was mainly that the ants will forage the scat and pick up the worm casing which contain eggs and begin the cycle again.
I have some papers on this if you are interested (If I didn't already send them to you).

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