Worming

I was just wondering if anyone on here has ever had to or does anyone here regularly worm there leo's?

I'm not sure about leos being wormed.. but in one of my vet meds lessons.. they were mentioning lizards being wormed.. soo i imagine that leos can be wormed, too.

i know that rankin/bearded dragons can be wormed as just had to do mine but my vet said as the leo's have the same food as the dragons it might be a idea to do them, so i just thought i would see if anyone else has ever had to or do worm theres on a regular basis

Yup i've done it. Luckily it was a hell of a long time ago when i didn't have many leo's because it was a right faff.

Pinworms are the biggest worm threat in leo's (i think).
Your vet might have mentioned panacure? or you may be using it for your dragon?
You also need to get rid of all the worm eggs in the enclosure. This means moving your gecko into another tub, and then sterilizing, steaming, disinfecting everything, literally everything! Anything that has gone near the viv. Like tweasers you use to feed or anything like that. Anything that can't be sterilized properly should just be thrown out to be honest, because the problem will keep coming back. Also anything that see's more than one viv, i.e if you use a feeding bowl in two different vivs alternating, then your gonna have to sterilize the other one too.... and any others.

I wish you luck, its gonna be fun.

yep pinworm eggs are what they found in my bearded dragons poop and as they all have the same livefoods i have to got collect a 2.5% panacur liquid for my leos as the dragons had a 10%panacur liquid. i think tomorrow i'll tub everyone up into live food tubs and take there tubs,water bowls and food bowls down to the kitchen for a detol disinfecting cleaning lol oh what fun
im lucky there's only 15 leos and 3fat tails in my rack now compared to at 40+ i did have last year
will let you all know how it goes lol

Haha, oh god, your gonna have a whale of a time, cleaning all those. But it might be able to be finished in one day rather than the one month 40 gecko's would take you lol.

if not i'll do half tomorrow and the rest the next day lol there's only 14tubs in my rack so should be able to do it in one day lol i hope

:O wow.. thats going to be a HUGE job! ... how do they get pinworms? i'm worried about banana now.. if she got them, what are the symptoms and how could she get them?

they can get pinworms from livefood, the main symptom is weight loss.
the easyest way to find out if they have them is to get a poo sample checked like i did with my bearded dragon.

seeing the pics of Banana i wouldn't worry to much

hahaha shhh she is just big boned lol

yes she is big boned bless her

One of the most common parasites crickets can carry is the horsehair worm (http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef613.asp ). Then pinworms, coccidia, & tapeworm are also able live on/in crickets. Here's a link to some great photos of slide shots from fecal exams to show the nastiness that crickets ingest/have in them. I certainly wouldn't want to feed them. http://www.thegeckospot.net/fecal.php A lot of the problemis crickets are messy nasty creatures leavingbehind coipous amounts of waste which they will turn right around and eat despite the presence of a food item. It doesn't matterif it's their waste, the wasteo f an animal tjheir living with, or what, sad fact, crickets eat poo... ALL poo. Also many of those parasites are found in fecal matter of mammals and reptiles. Some reptiles can just remain carriers if they ahve a strong enough immune system, but 99% in time and increased parasite load will show symptoms eventually. Parasites usually attack the GI tract so your affected animal in early stages could have revenous appetite with off and on bad stools. As teh infestation progresses you will start to see weight loss, loss of appetite, runny stool... then as it is a full blown infestation and the animal is over run with parasites you will see adult parasites leaving your host animal, either in their feces or directly from their vent, they will have lost a lt of weight, have runny liquidy stool, loss of appetite, vomiting, and failure to thrive. In most cases where I have had to deal with parasites (mind you this is with mammals not herps) the animal hardly ever lost a lot of appetite if anything it increased as the animal was trying to make up for nutrients it was being robbed by the parasite. Doing routine prophilactic de-worming on leos is not generally recommended as it takes a LOT out of the animal and is very hard on their system. Any time you de-worm a herp you should also accompany that with a round of probiotics to restore the good gut flora you'll be destroying with the de-worming regimen. The type of parasite your herp has will dictate what de-wormer to use. Panacure (Fenbendiazole) is the one that is most often used, very effective and has the least chance of overdose and toxic side effects.

thanks for that useful info kel, im collecting the Panacur wormer from my vets tomorrow. then the fun of treating everyone will begin lol

Sounds like a blast... the biggest worry is the potential for coccidia. Bleach is the only thing that will kill coccidia so it looks like you might have to bleach everything. Don't worry bleach dries to salt (if you get regular unscented bleach) so it won't harm your leo once it's rinsed and dry if there is any residue. The fumes however are toxic so make sure to do it well away from your animals.

if its nice and sunny again i'll do it all out in the garden on the concrete.

:/ im worried about worms now. can they get worms even if they are not fed on crickets?

Crickets are the genealcarrier of parasites because of th soft body and scavenger ways BUT any feeder insect kept in the wrong conditions for an extended period of time can become. Infected.

Unless you plan on letting your worms live in mouldy substrait with no food, limited water and never cleaned out the frass then you might have to worry.

samsleopardgeckos wrote:if its nice and sunny again i'll do it all out in the garden on the concrete.

See, things are looking up already haha

i was told by my vet that the livefood can come from the breeders/suppliers like it, and i dont feed crickets so the pinworms the bearded dragons had has to of come from the morio worms, mealworms, locust or waxworms.

sarah you dont need to worry unless she shows signs of being ill or lossing weight, but you can always worm just to be safe

nice day again looks like i'll be scrubbing tubs in the garden lol

haha my brothers been working in the garden over the last few days. It's looking nice my rabbits are enjoying the sunny weather

And, I'm happy that I don't have to worry. I panic everytime I hear of a new thing that can affect my pets.

Eww... I saw a morioworm beetle for the first time yesterday.. red/maroon and gross

The pin worms likely came from the locusts. Again a soft bodied creature that will eat anything...

only 1 of my leo's and my 2 beardies eat locust so for it to be affecting the rest of the leos and my rankins it has to be the mealworms or waxworms cos nearly all my leo's are housed on there own or in pairs.

or the worm cysts could be traveling on you from one enclosure to the next...

or my vet is right and the mealworms/waxworms are carrying the pinworm which is more likely as i use F10 hand gel between each tub because i know how easy it is to transmit stuff from one animal to another