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Pinworms in Snakes

salottimc

salottimc

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I was researching various problems with feeding snakes live rodents when I came across pinworms. There seems to be conflicting information and I'm not sure what to believe. As far as I can tell, pinworms are quite species-specific (i.e. a human doesn't get the same type of pinworm their pet can contract). If this is the case, then it seems impossible for snakes to contract pinworms from their feeders. Although they shouldn't be able to contract them, I imagine the eggs would still pass in their stool and show up in a fecal float. Snakes themselves have a pinworm species that are specific to snakes, but they would contract this from other infected snakes.

Even with this information, I see a lot of places claiming that snakes can get infected with pinworms from live feeders. Does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks for any help.
 
From what im reading you want to know if a pinworm from a feeder mouse can infect a snake? Probably not assuming there are species specific to mammals and also reptiles, that doesn't mean you still wont find them in there stool afterwards, having someone who is qualified to identify the difference between a pinworm that infects a reptile and one that infects a mammal is going to the your solution. Pinworms are so common in reptiles (both CB and WC) that they are usually not considered harmful.
 
Thanks for the response. At this point, I'm wondering if most pinworm diagnoses are actually mouse or rat pinworms and eggs passing through the digestive system of a snake. Information on the internet about the differences of various pinworms is lacking to nonexistent.
 
From what I learned in exotic parasitology, it depends on which species is being tested. For example, as you stated, the rats and mice carry the pinworms, the snakes ingest it and the eggs survive and pass through the gut into the snakes feces. This is why most reptile veterinarians are taught that you don't treat a pinworm infection in a snake unless they are showing symptoms. However, bearded dragons contract pinworms from the cricket which has been shown to cause problems, so typically if they are found in a beardie, they are treated. That is why it is really important that an experienced vet/vet tech be performing fecals on reptiles. While it is easy for anyone to see what's there, it's always open to interpretation and there is conflicting evidence on what to treat and what not to treat. Also, information changes as we learn more about different species and their diseases, so definitely search out updated information from reliable sources.
 
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