Heavy parasite load found in ball python from Ed Clark

[Dr Owens]

My friends bring their cameras to have their pictures taken with Ed's balls.

You have some weird friends...

I'm glad that someone said it! God knows I thought it!

 

[Wilomn]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gecko_Den
Quote:
Originally Posted by brucestephenson
My friends bring their cameras to have their pictures taken with Ed's balls.

You have some weird friends...


I'm glad that someone said it! God knows I thought it!
__________________
Dr Jay Owens
Dr Owens Captive Bred Reptiles
[email protected]

I just left it alone. I couldn't see any good coming from any comment I would make about mr. clarks balls and why brucie and his friends were taking pictures of them.

I mean, can you imagine the sheer poundage of fat sweaty guys huddled around, jostling for position, waiting their turn.......

See, I have to go wash my eyes with ajax now.

Thanks Jay.

 

[Serafim]

Quote:


I mean, can you imagine the sheer poundage of fat sweaty guys huddled around, jostling for position, waiting their turn.......

See, I have to go wash my eyes with ajax now.

Thanks Jay.

That is a disturbing mental picture LOL.. But you forgot to add the fact that they are all dressed up as Jedi Masters....

 

[Dr Owens]

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.

For clarity's sake, I didn't make that statement about false-negatives in an effort to offer Ed some sort of defense. It was merely a general statement about fecal testing for ova and parasites.

As for your above statement, I think that it would be very unlikely for a snake harboring three different organisms to have a false-negative test for all three. The odds are simply against it. Quite frankly, false-negatives aren't all that common anyway...please don't misconstrue my previous statments in such a manner as to think that you need to test every animal multiple times or anything. I will requote that statement here with emphasis added:

This is why testing should be repeated multple times, and/or by different means of testing (fecal float vs. fecal smear, etc.) if there is a strong clinical suspicion of parasitic infection.

 

[Chameleon Company]

I believe that the chips have already fallen where they may ..

Jim, if you had sold me an animal that was supposed to be captive bred and born and it came to my attention later that the animal may not actually be and you then could not or would not respond to my questioning it Jim, if you had sold me an animal that was supposed to be captive bred and born and it came to my attention later that the animal may not actually be and you then could not or would not respond to my questioning it I think it would not be a terrible thing for me to make a public post about it. After 10 months I certainly do not expect any compensation as has already been stated, but I do think that lying and bad business practices are worthy of making public. After 10 months I certainly do not expect any compensation as has already been stated, but I do think that lying and bad business practices are worthy of making public.

Emily. I am posting to enjoy a good debate, and hopefully not to impugn you too harshly. With that said, I highlighted in bold what I thought was the key word in your argument directed as a response to my spin, that being the word "may". "May" also implies "may not", and while others have alluded to that possibility, I believe you have not. The animals could very well have been CBB AND infected btw, as nothing you have presented eliminates that the animals were accurately represented as to origin. It has been pointed out here by many how these parasites have shown up elsewhere in otherwise stellar collections, and yet you want to continue on this point:

... if you had sold me an animal that was supposed to be captive bred and born and it came to my attention later that the animal may not actually be ...

I and others here know that parasites do not eliminate an animal from CBB origins .... hardly. As for all the other things Ed seems guilty of here; poor response time if at all, failure to cooperate with a paying customer (I have less standing for non-paying ones), and various other "bad business practices", I have no dispute. But I also think that when you characterize your actions here as "not a terrible thing for me to make a public post about it", you are also understating the thrust of your thread starter, as the main issue you have highlighted is the parasites from Ed, not all the other valid issues combined, IMMHO. Ed is certainly not without obligations on the parasite issue, and will be evaluated on how he responds, to include a choice to not respond adequately in the eyes of many if he continues that path. On the timeliness issue, I stand with Kelly and Randy and others. Call it the dilemma of having to prove a negative, which is the position that a complaint 10-months-late puts a seller in, but buyers have clear obligatons in transactions too, and as a buyer, you made choices that came up short to me. The question of whether or not you want compensation is not the issue, and is not a concession that otherwise validates your assertion that the animals had parasites from Ed. The parasites may have absolutely come from Ed. My issue is a sense of fair-play, and an honoring of TOS by both seller and buyer, and any other implied purchases. Accountability involving parasites diminishes with time removed from possession. What I see are two people, both ends of a 10 month old transaction, who fell short in their ongoing obligations to the deal, and have yet to address it in a way that wins me over to either side. Hypotheticals do not work well for me btw, as they only seem to only broaden and gunk-up arguements, rather than better define and restrict them.

I am glad that you caught all before an animal succumbed, and that all conditions are treatable. I am not shedding any tears over Ed.

 

[ExoticsExpress]

That is a disturbing mental picture LOL.. But you forgot to add the fact that they are all dressed up as Jedi Masters....

haha! Yea was weird enough without remembering the intense jedi fetish!

Anthony Allis
[email protected]

 

[Jim O]

That is a disturbing mental picture LOL.. But you forgot to add the fact that they are all dressed up as Jedi Masters....

I believe that I have located an image of the Bruce, Bud, and Ed...

 

[jsrocket]

Taking pics, and good video is not weird, it's one of the BEST ways to document what actually happened. As opposed to a poorly written description.

 

[Wilomn]

I believe that I have located an image of the Bruce, Bud, and Ed...

The paunchy one on the left is brucie. Isn't it? That one has the most squirrel boob anyway.

Squirrel boobs.


Nope, I'll just leave it alone. Alone I say, walk away I must, go, away......

Damn you JimO, I cannu take much more, she's starting to break up....

 

[jsrocket]

Ha ha, it's joke time. Problem is, nobody has any sense of humor.

 

[jsrocket]

What, that's it? No link? A stupid pic of squirrels fighting with light sabers? You gotta be kidding.

Yeah, this has a lot to do with this thread.

 

[WebSlave]

Again, if my rodents were the source of the problem, wouldn't all my snakes be suffering as a result and not just the ones that came from Ed? Is it really that likely that a feeder rat from a private breeding colony would cause this level of infestation and 3 different parasites? I'm all for having a few of my rats tested, I'm just wondering what kind of likelihood we're talking about here and why everyone's snakes aren't crawling in parasites if it's really that easy.

You paint with too broad of a brush.

There is nothing that demands that ALL of your rodents must be infected with a parasite just because one of them might have been. There is no law that states that ALL of your snakes must be infected with a parasite just because one of them is.

This would be like saying that if one person in a room catches the flu from someone else, then EVERYONE must catch it, regardless of any other circumstances. Disease vectors just do not work that way.

I repeat... If your rodent colony is not in a sterile controlled environment, they are not isolated, nor protected, from various and sundry parasitic cycles all around them in NATURE. Regardless of quarantine. Regardless of husbandry. Regardless of your wishes otherwise.

As for three different disease pathogens at one time, I doubt anyone could claim any conceivable scenario is impossible.

And yes, I would bet that LOTS of animal collections DO have more parasites than most people would imagine. Matter of fact, I would bet that a lot of US probably have more parasites within our bodies than we would ever really want to think about.

If you want to get your hair standing up on the back of your neck some night, read up on zoonoses. Those are diseases that are passed from animals to man. Check out references to Linguatula serrata, for instance.

 

[Rapture]

Just some observations from my point of view.

1. The point of this thread is not to harm Ed or his business, but to make other customers of Ed's aware of the possibility of their animals also having contagious parasites.

2. Emily should not have brought Ed's name into the picture until she had good, hard evidence that the animals were infected upon arrival. Good, hard evidence would include tests on the other snakes aquired from Ed, and tests on the other snakes in her collection. Perhaps even tests on her feeder rodents.

3. Ed should not totally dismiss the possibility that he sent infected snakes to Emily without evidence that his collection is proven to be clean of parasites regularly.

4. Emily should not totally dismiss the possibility that the animals aquired from Ed contracted parasites without evidence that the rest of her collection is clean of parasites.

5. In the event that Emily had good, hard evidence that the animals were infected upon arrival, I believe this is the place to make others who have purchased animals from Ed aware of the situation rather than the Ball Python forum. If I had purchased an animal from Ed, I would not have seen this thread in the Ball Python forum.

6. Ed should have better overall communication about the matter at hand, as he has used up his free benefit of the doubt cards in past incidents.

 

[shrap]

Linguatula serrata

Oh man, now that just aint right. That made my skin crawl.

 

[Mooing Tricycle]

Oh man, now that just aint right. That made my skin crawl.

youre telling me..... BLECH!

 

[Dr Owens]

Ed,
Why are you ignoring this topic? This is out of character for you given your usual involvement on the forum. The inevitable conclusion is that you have something to hide...

Speak up man!

 

[Pink Lady Exotics]

I refuse to look that up, or I won't sleep.

I have been following this thread and after seeing the vet reports posted, I do have a question -- is Panacur a cure-all for all parasites? Or just those 3 that were discovered? I thought that tapeworms required a separate treatment?

 

[jsrocket]

Hey, I knew Linguatula Serrata personally, and I can attest that she could make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.

I could tell more, but after we broke the buffet table in the green room, and the chainsaw incident, we all swore we would never speak of it again.

So I won't.

But yes, Ed, your silence is deafening. I don't think you're necessarily the bad guy here, but a few honest words in your own defense sure couldn't hurt.

 

[kbmxc]

He's taking time to plan a response. I believe that is what he has done in the past when questioned about something. He doesn't want to jump in and let something slip that will give him away, as happens with others on here. He may be a reseller with less then honest business practices but he's not a complete moron. After all, he has done quite well convincing casual hobbyist that he hatches all of his own animals instead of buying them wholesale and mixing them in with his own breeders, imports, what have you. It's all planned out, as will be his response....when he can think of it.

K. Banks

 

[rabernet]

Seems Odd

There are two people involved in this trade, one person is here taking your questions, providing information and documentation, being called out for her actions....where's the other person? That speaks volumes, but not surprising considering the source.