Deworming -- Best Practice?

[AmandaJ]

I got my ball pythons in to my exotics vet and they're gorgeous and marvelous, healthy weights, excellent sheds, the works. Yay!

Unfortunately, their follow-up fecal revealed pinworms (ick). I just ran them through a cycle of dewormer -- panacur, I think? -- and that was... well, difficult. I went in, snakes in hand (okay, in bags) to my vet, and she showed me how to get their little mouths open and shoot the wormer down their throats, but man-oh-man were they ever resistant!

We're awaiting the next appearance of snake poo with bated breath so we can run the fecals again and see if we need another course of dewormer. Since pinworms are, according to my vet, notoriously difficult to get rid of I foresee more medication in my future.

So, my question is, is the method I'm using (pry mouths open gently with syringe and then shoot meds down) the best, or is there another method that could work? I've heard of injecting their food with the dewormer, and feeding them 3 tiny meals 3 days in a row but I'm not sure how well they'd take it.

Any voices of experience, I'm all ears y'all. Because I'd rather medicate almost anything again than attempt deworming the snakes. The only worse animal in my house to medicate is my lone girl cat...

[Zuma22]

I actually just posted a similar thread asking for advice on giving oral meds. I got the suggestion to push up their upper lip and dribble the medicine in down their bottom lip and into their mouth. It is much less invasive than prying open their mouth completely and shoving the syringe down their throats. My snake, Ghana, is teeny tiny and very shy, so this has been especially traumatic for her and I found this method in the last two days to be much less stressful than completely opening her mouth. It takes a little doing to make sure the meds don't just drip back out but if you tilt their head back and to the side it should all stay in their mouth and they'll swallow on their own.

Good luck!! I'm waiting anxiously for poo as well!!

[AmandaJ]

Thanks so much! So, are you opening her mouth with your hand or the tip of the syringe? And I guess you have to actively hold her head to keep it on the side?

I'm still getting over the fact that I'm manipulating my snake's mouth in any way, LOL -- but I'll absolutely give this a shot. I'm pretty sure they don't remember much, but I think when they're dodging and dodging it has to be stressing them out and anything that mitigates the experience (for all of us) is worth trying.

[RaskaNeil]

I can see the food trick working, but if it did wouldn't be as effective as shooting it straight down her throat. I'm not a vet of course, just an EMT and in my experience (with People) when we give them medication and they've eaten shortly before we have arrived it takes longer for it to work (of course also depends on the route).

Good luck! Almost everyone on this forum is of course more informed than I am and I wouldn't be surprised if I am absolutely wrong. I still have to find a HerpVet (found out recently that my vet was just lying to me about herps, unintentionally though)!

[Zuma22]

I hold her just behind her head so I can keep her head from moving and am able to move it the way I need to. I then have the syringe in my other hand and gently push up her lip and aim the tip of the syringe into her mouth and down. It's kind of hard to explain, but just do what feels right to you and practice will help you refine you technique and before you know it, it's a piece of cake for both of you!

Good luck!