My first Garter!

[J@50n]

Yeah, even some that seemed to be in perfect health, strong, vigorous, growing and eating well, passed worms during treatment. If they are carrying a heavy load, pieces of tapeworms sometimes, or wads of nematodes come out. The will have "the squirts" for 3-5 days. It's pretty nasty but worth it.

Treatment is rough on them so they need to be in fairly good health. There is a right time and a wrong time to do it. It does dehydrate them and it is stressful. But those that can handle it are much better off afterward. They bounce back quickly and start putting on weight.

Is there anything I can read up on about the process of doing this myself? And is there any way I could purchase the medicine online?

[ConcinusMan]

Dosage information:

Common Reptile Drugs and Dosages

Calculating Drug Dosages for Reptiles by Marcia Rybak & Stephen L. Barten

Sentry Worm X Plus works (tablets) well for both tapeworms and a wide variety of others and is available without prescription. It's also inexpensive. I can't stress the importance of proper dosage. Too little makes worms resistant and immune to future attempts at deworming, too much has a negative effect on the snake up to and possibly including death. It is poison. It's not easily absorbed by the snake but it is easily absorbed by the worms. You'll want to get the weight of your snake after a two week fast, and when you give the meds, give it with food that digests quickly and has high water content so it pass through the gut quickly, giving it less time for the snake to absorb it. This is in pill form so you will have to cut or shave off the proper amount (it will be a fairly tiny amount) and weigh it accurately using a microgram (thousandths of a gram) scale.

Just remember dosages listed on the web pages are per Kg. Your snake is going to weigh fractions of a Kg. Dosages will be minute and will require a very accurate (and expensive) scale capable of weighing very tiny amounts. In some cases, less than a milligram. The difference between half a milligram and a whole milligram can mean the difference between not enough and too much. Be careful! I learned how to do this under close guidance by a qualified reptile vet/zoologist.

This product contains the drugs Pyrantel Pamoate (for hookworms, pinworms, and many others) and Praziquantel (for tapeworms and a few others for which the other drug doesn't work) There are others you can use however. See the dosage pages.

[snakehill]

To avoid a high parasite load, try freezing the toads solid, then thaw them in a bag along with some pinkies. That does two things. Freezing kills parasites inside the toads, and thawing with pinkies gets toad scent on them so he might be more easily converted over to rodents. Nothing wrong with whole toads, it's just that they carry worms. Better to convert him over to pinkies or scent pinkies with toads to get him to eat them.

Not to mention how cute little toadies are!!!