Heavy parasite load found in ball python from Ed Clark

Actually I have no axe to grind with Ed. I don't always like what he has to say but I did buy from him and the animals I bought are doing great, something which I have always said.

I was thinking that it had been a week with no response from Ed when I posted prior, so this is a bit of a quick move to the BOI with the time frame being less.

I still think that Ed should at least respond, put forth some effort here.

I still think that Ed should at least respond, put forth some effort here.

He certainly should. If it were my name in the title of this thread I would be posting vet reports right and left, and defending my name!

Tapeworm Life Cycle

With few exceptions, all cestodes require at least two hosts, and the adult is the parasite in the digestive tract of vertebrates. Often one of the intermediate hosts is an invertebrate (most often an arthropod such as a flea, louse or copepod) that is eaten by the final host. The eggs within the proglottids are shed daily in the feces into the soil where they may lie dormant for quite some time. Sometimes the egg-bearing proglottids crawl out of the anus by themselves and can be found wriggling about on an infected dog, cat or child or on infected clothing and bedding. Once the eggs are released, they must be ingested by an intermediate host in order to hatch into hooked larvae called oncospheres, which bore through the intestinal wall and picked up by the circulatory system where they are transported to skeletal muscle, heart or even some other organ where they encyst as cysticerci (bladder worms). Each cysticercus is essentially an inside-out scolex that everts after the infected tissue (so-called "measly meat") of the intermediate host is eaten by the final host. The scolex then attaches to the lining of the intestine by means of suckers and/or hooks.

Another lifecycle description

H. diminuta uses two hosts, the rat and an insect, such as a beetle. For laboratory maintenance it is convenient to use the flour beetle Tribolium confusum , but, in nature, a variety of other species would serve this function. The tapeworm reaches sexual maturity in the rat and releases eggs into the rat's gut lumen where they become incorporated into the faeces for subsequent discharge by the rat. The egg already contains a fully-developed larva called the oncosphere.

Faeces provide food for many invertebrate animals, including insects, so it is likely that sooner or later the tapeworm eggs will be eaten by an insect wherein they hatch to release an actively moving oncosphere. Its function is to migrate to the haemocoel (body cavity) of the insect where it will grow and differentiate into an encapsulated juvenile worm. This stage, the cysticercoid, is dormant and resides in the insect until both are eaten by a foraging rat.

Within the rat stomach and intestine the juvenile worm responds to chemical signals and is stimulated to emerge (excyst) from the cysticercoid in which it has been living. The juvenile worm so released comprises the head (scolex) of the new tapeworm which attaches to the intestinal surface (mucosa) and grows to an adult.

There are more, but I believe some people can read between the lines here.

If you raise your own rodents and they are not in a perfectly controlled environment that absolutely excludes any intrusion by ANY type of insect that could be eaten by the rodents, or even the feces of the insects contaminating the food of the rodents, the POSSIBILITY exists of parasites being introduced into your closed and strictly quarantined collection via that vector. Of particular note is that some parasites (particularly tapeworms) can be zoonotic in nature. Meaning YOU can wind up being a part of that parasitic life cycle if you are not careful.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Meaning YOU can wind up being a part of that parasitic life cycle if you are not careful.

And THAT is why you shouldn't eat rat poop.

Originally Posted by Dr Owens

And THAT is why you shouldn't eat rat poop.

Op buy from Rat Poop!

Originally Posted by jasballs

Op buy from Rat Poop!

or even!

Originally Posted by Dr Owens

I'm not sure the point of your question. I made a statement about false-negative test results. In your case you had a positive test result. With this kind of testing you really can't have a false-positive unless the pathologist (or whoever is doing the read) doesn't know what they're doing, and they simply misread the slides.

Sorry i wasn't clear. What i was getting at was if Ed says he always gets negative results and some of those were due to false negative results then sure, he might think his snakes are clean. But the likelihood of getting false negative results on snakes with 3 different types of parasites seems rather unlikely. That was my only point.

Thanks also for the lesson in tapeworms. Another question though--if it is so easy for them to get tapeworms from their food, why aren't tapeworms insanely common in snakes? And if this snake got tapeworms from my feeders, why don't the rest of them have tapeworms too?

Here are a few points from my perspective.

1. 10 months is a long time so Ed may or may not have sent infected snakes.
2. Ed should test his animals just to make sure nothing is wrong which will also aid in future sales.
3. Ed needs to address this even if it is just to dispute it.
4. Bud and Bruce are idiots.
5. Emily should have given Ed a bit more time before going to the BOI.
6. Ed needs to stop with the comments about gifts which he may think is funny and breaking the tension but comes across as arrogant.
7. Bud and Bruce are idiots.
8. Emily should have tested the animals if they were eating but not gaining weight.
AND
8. Did I mention Bud and Bruce are idiots?

Quote""I DID make a thread about this on ball-pythons.net--that is thread that Kelli is talking about where she disagrees with my having posted Ed's name.

I don't normally post on the forums here and the only other forums I frequent are gecko forums. Why would I post anything in those places? Why is this not exactly the place for this type of post? """

So you started a thread before you told Ed of the problem?? This is a place for business deals and if as you have stated IE that you wanted to warn others about Ed's Ball Pythons then why not post in the Ball Python forums instead of here?? I think more Ball python owners and prospective owners would see it there than will see it here.. I don't recall mentioning Gecko forums so don't know why you brought that up.

As has been stated Ivermectin doesn't work well on tapeworms nor if I'm not mistaken does it have much of an effect on coccidia . Though your Rats will for sure be free of Heart worm!! So treating your rodents with Ivermectin doesn't preclude them from having and thus transmitting these parasites to your snakes. You add in the 10 months that you've had these animals and yeah I wonder why you now post this on the BOI.


Quote"" Thanks also for the lesson in tapeworms. Another question though--if it is so easy for them to get tapeworms from their food, why aren't tapeworms insanely common in snakes? And if this snake got tapeworms from my feeders, why don't the rest of them have tapeworms too?""

The way I see this is that it is very possible that they got the parasites while in your care. It really doesn't matter where after 10 months they got it but it's time for you to stop the blame everyone else game and realise that you could be very very wrong. Can you with all honesty say with 100 percent certainty that these animals got all these parasites before they were in your care?? You've said as much in this thread might want to rethink your stance...

Good one Steve especially 4,7 and the second 8 ....Randy