lizards and frogs

Hi guys

Can anyone pleaze tell me if there is a safe way to feed my snakes with wc lizards and frogs without the fear of parasites and diseases?Does freezing them for a long period of time and in low temperatures is a good and safe method?

Cheers Aris

From what I hear, freezing potential prey items for 72 hrs will eradicate any internal parasites they may have.

Freezing will kill mostly of the bacteria, but many worm (Nematodes) parasites and its eggs can survive to freeze in quiet low temperatures very easy and for long periods of time. The best way to do it, IMO, is to give worm/parasite medicine to the prey items and then freezes it.

Thank you guys for answering.The problem mr Eduardo is that i dont know anything about medicines Crying or Very sad

!!!Can you please tell me what medicine kills parasites?And if give them the medicine for how long should i wait before freezing them?

Hey!

A common medicine i used against worms is Panacur (Febendazole), you need a good scales to get the right weight of the animals and calculate the dosage. I use about 50 to 100 mg / kg of body weight. Panacur is a tablet, so you can crush it making into a powder and dust insects and feed the lizards/frogs or mixed with water and inject directly in its mouth. To be sure you kill all the eggs, you repeat the treatment after 2 weeks, then you wait about 24 hours and can freeze the prey.
This is a old fashion way to kill worms in reptiles and amphibians and I'm not a veterinarian, may be someone in the forum has a better and easier idea in how to do it. Anyway, this has worked for me with WC animals i had.
If you have the possibility to bring a fecal sample to a veterinarian and check for worms and other parasites would be the best though.
hope it helps

Cheers
Eddie

Thanks a lot for the answer mr Eduardo!!!!

You're welcome

Cheers
Eddie

I have the same problem here, but as eduardo says, the best way is to deworm all preyitems even mouse and rats, I'm a vet and i suggest using a combination of pirantel or prazicuantel and fenemdazol or albendazole, and then freezing, the only problem is that it can be expencive and take a lo of time

Freezing unfortunately will not eliminate certain coccidian parasites like Cryptosporidium, and some Emieria and Isospora species. It also depends on the cliamte you're catching the lizards and frogs from. Parasites adapt to the environmental conditions around them. For example, most parasites die quickly when dried out, but the coccidia affecting wild Bearded Dragons can withstand several days in the hot sun whereas coccidia from more temperate climates can not.

My personal philosophy for parasites in feeders is "When in doubt, medicate"!!

Fenbendazole is great for intestinal parasites and it is very safe in high doses. the reason it is so safe is that it mostly stays in the digestive tract and very little of it is absorbed into the animal's system. Because of that, it will only affect nematode parasites within the digestive tract. If there are any nematodes migrating somewhere else in the body (which is common in lizards and frogs as intermediate hosts) them Fembendazole won't tough them. You'd be better to go with Mebendazole or Albendazole.

Praziquantel for tapeworms and flukes is still your best bet though.

Hope this will help!

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