Panacur

Hi everyone, just a few simple questions I have and am looking forward to getting all of your opinions... I just want to know if you think it's a good idea to automatically treat a newly received monitor(one which is more than likely a wild caught lizard) with panacur/safeguard to be on the safe side of things and make sure most parasites and stuff is wiped clean... I don't keep monitors, but know people who do and see more and more people mentioning this, just curious if its even necessary or are they only further putting the monitor in danger? According to one friend, the place he got a water monitor from(he's in California and the monitor was bought somewhere in ca also), for some reason told him it would be a good idea to do this on his new monitor. Huh?!? Aren't they supposed to do that for the most part?? What happened was his water monitor wasn't eating how he thought it should have been, so he called the store about a week later and they immediately told him he should do this and that it won't hurt if not needed. I forget the exact dosage that they mentioned but I know it sounded very stupid. Let me know what this craps all about, I wanted to get a savannah as my first monitor this spring, waters get too big and are not legal But if this is becoming the new "normal", ill just stick to my snakes!! Ps... I would get my savannah cbb, pay the extra money, I know better than what some others do like this kid who's now worried what's going to happen to his new animal... Lol-a shame... Thanks.

No i wouldnt do it, if you want to go by the books you should have a fecal exam ran first to check for parasites and then treat accordingly. One of the biggest misconceptions i find in animal medicine is that there is a universal dewormer on the market, THERE IS NOT. Certain parasites only react with certain dewormers. And if you use the wrong wormer, then it will have no effect. Plus how do you know what the correct dosage of wormer you'll need for the animal depending on the parasite load? Sometimes you need to use more or less of a wormer depending on the parasite load. Also giving dewormer can be physically stressful when giving it to an animal, so why stress out an otherwise healthy animal? Best example i had was when i first got my black roughneck monitor. I took it into my work, we ran a fecal analysis, we found an unidentifiable egg in the fecal sample. We sent it off to the lab and it turned out to be hookworm. the animal itself was perfectly healthy at the time (and still is to this day using no dewormers) because the parasites are not ill effecting the animal. you'd be surprised how many animals (even cbb) have parasites in them without the owner being ever the wiser to it, because the animal is successfully living with them in its system. Im not saying using dewormers is bad im just saying you should not have a "shoot first, ask questions later" attitude on this topic, I believe its just better to seek professional help (vet) when it comes to these kinds of problems rather than trying to DIY.