I KNEW BETTER! UGH!!!

[TKCARDANDCOIN]

I Picked up a new female russian tort about two months ago from a friend that assured me she was healthy and parasite free!I quarantined her for only a couple of weeks and put her in with my other females.She was plump and heavy and a eating machine so I never gave it a second thought!

Fast forward a month...PANACUR.Every one now has worms.What a mess.I kept an eye on her and i never noticed anything out of the norm.Her fecals looked normal and she looked great.I should have gone with my instinct and kept her in quarantine a few more months.I almost always give every new tort a round of panacur but I was assured she was parasite free...I will learn from this one.....

 

[Torty Mom]

Crap what a pain in the butt! I am sorry you are dealing with all that!!

 

[egyptiandan]

Just be glad it was only worms.

Danny

 

[Isa]

Sorry your and your gang have to go through that!

 

[-ryan-]

Reptiles have parasites, and they live with them in the wild. The problem is that sometimes captive conditions allow the parasitic infection grow to a point when it becomes a problem. Basic husbandry problems like the basking spot being too cold (under 100f surface temperature is generally not hot enough for adults), or not having enough humidity (which is an easy problem to have in open-topped enclosures) will make it difficult for the tortoise's body to respond to the parasites appropriately to keep them in check. I would not be surprised if my adults in my breeding group have parasites. In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't have any, but I'm not going to treat them for it. They live, eat, poop, breed, and act like normal healthy tortoises, and they have for half a decade in my care now, so I treat them as such. But how you deal with parasites is based on personal opinion unless it becomes an actual problem for the animal, and that usually is caused by husbandry deficiencies, rather than the parasites themselves.

Just food for thought. I used to send my fecals out and treat my animals for all sorts of parasites, and they sometimes seemed worse off during and after the treatment than they did before. I had to treat my bearded dragon for all sorts of parasites, and every time I would bring the fecals in there was something else, or the meds hadn't done their job fully, etc. etc. Eventually, I just didn't give him the meds and stopped taking in fecals. I upped the basking spot temperature to about 145f surface temp and started keeping him on dirt (which created humid microclimates) and he did the best he had ever done after that. The parasites he had left over were no longer a problem for his body to control, but four or five years later he did eventually get cancer and he recently died at a fairly ripe old age. I just have to wonder if the cancer wasn't somehow caused by putting those meds into his system when he was young. There's no medical foundation for that thought, but it's just something that has stuck in the back of my head and has effected my thought process regarding parasites and their treatment.

 

[Scooter]

Reptiles have parasites, and they live with them in the wild. The problem is that sometimes captive conditions allow the parasitic infection grow to a point when it becomes a problem. Basic husbandry problems like the basking spot being too cold (under 100f surface temperature is generally not hot enough for adults), or not having enough humidity (which is an easy problem to have in open-topped enclosures) will make it difficult for the tortoise's body to respond to the parasites appropriately to keep them in check. I would not be surprised if my adults in my breeding group have parasites. In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't have any, but I'm not going to treat them for it. They live, eat, poop, breed, and act like normal healthy tortoises, and they have for half a decade in my care now, so I treat them as such. But how you deal with parasites is based on personal opinion unless it becomes an actual problem for the animal, and that usually is caused by husbandry deficiencies, rather than the parasites themselves.

Just food for thought. I used to send my fecals out and treat my animals for all sorts of parasites, and they sometimes seemed worse off during and after the treatment than they did before. I had to treat my bearded dragon for all sorts of parasites, and every time I would bring the fecals in there was something else, or the meds hadn't done their job fully, etc. etc. Eventually, I just didn't give him the meds and stopped taking in fecals. I upped the basking spot temperature to about 145f surface temp and started keeping him on dirt (which created humid microclimates) and he did the best he had ever done after that. The parasites he had left over were no longer a problem for his body to control, but four or five years later he did eventually get cancer and he recently died at a fairly ripe old age. I just have to wonder if the cancer wasn't somehow caused by putting those meds into his system when he was young. There's no medical foundation for that thought, but it's just something that has stuck in the back of my head and has effected my thought process regarding parasites and their treatment.

I knew someone that felt the same way you do. He had many species of torts that were all kept outside and he didn't treat any of them for worms unless there was a massive load but this only happened once every few years and he had at least 20-30 torts.

 

[Tom]

At least you caught it early. Live and learn.

 

[-ryan-]

Reptiles have parasites, and they live with them in the wild. The problem is that sometimes captive conditions allow the parasitic infection grow to a point when it becomes a problem. Basic husbandry problems like the basking spot being too cold (under 100f surface temperature is generally not hot enough for adults), or not having enough humidity (which is an easy problem to have in open-topped enclosures) will make it difficult for the tortoise's body to respond to the parasites appropriately to keep them in check. I would not be surprised if my adults in my breeding group have parasites. In fact, I would be surprised if they didn't have any, but I'm not going to treat them for it. They live, eat, poop, breed, and act like normal healthy tortoises, and they have for half a decade in my care now, so I treat them as such. But how you deal with parasites is based on personal opinion unless it becomes an actual problem for the animal, and that usually is caused by husbandry deficiencies, rather than the parasites themselves.

Just food for thought. I used to send my fecals out and treat my animals for all sorts of parasites, and they sometimes seemed worse off during and after the treatment than they did before. I had to treat my bearded dragon for all sorts of parasites, and every time I would bring the fecals in there was something else, or the meds hadn't done their job fully, etc. etc. Eventually, I just didn't give him the meds and stopped taking in fecals. I upped the basking spot temperature to about 145f surface temp and started keeping him on dirt (which created humid microclimates) and he did the best he had ever done after that. The parasites he had left over were no longer a problem for his body to control, but four or five years later he did eventually get cancer and he recently died at a fairly ripe old age. I just have to wonder if the cancer wasn't somehow caused by putting those meds into his system when he was young. There's no medical foundation for that thought, but it's just something that has stuck in the back of my head and has effected my thought process regarding parasites and their treatment.

I knew someone that felt the same way you do. He had many species of torts that were all kept outside and he didn't treat any of them for worms unless there was a massive load but this only happened once every few years and he had at least 20-30 torts.

Like everything else it's a very personal decision, and I don't wish to steer anyone away from treating their tortoises for parasites, but the way I look at it, my tortoises spend their time basking, eating, breeding, laying eggs, etc., and even if they do have parasites it does not seem to be causing them any problems. When tortoises are stressed, not warm enough, dehydrated, or otherwise weakened, that's when the parasitic infections become a genuine problem, and if mine showed signs that they had a genuine parasitic problem that husbandry adjustments did not fix, I would treat them appropriately. But, I always try to fix the environment first.

When you add a new tortoise in with a group, that adds some amount of stress to the group, which can cause a parasitic uprising regardless of whether or not the incoming tortoise had a heavy parasite load (it probably did). Tortoises also have a habit of eating each others' feces, which means that parasites are always going to get passed back and forth.

Reptile medical practices are interesting to me, but I have had bad experiences with parasite treatments, and you actually have to be careful because if you give them panacur and they have a heavy parasite load (and not enough heat to digest efficiently, which is often a contributing factor to a parasitic infection), they can actually become impacted as they try to pass them. Very rare, but documented.