parasites,what are the chances

[snakeLVR]

Ok, here is what I am curious about, what really are the chances of a captive bred snake developing a parasitic infestation from eating live prey. Believe me, I am actually trying to see the other side of the feeding issue, my intention to be completely objective. Reason I ask, is I am getting a pair of beautiful spiders from a very well known ball guy locally, and he is feeding them live prey. So I assume if there was a high risk, he would not be doing that,as has very valuable animals.

[Freakie_frog]

If you buy your feeders from a good rodant supplier then your chances of that are slim. I want say they are nonexistant but they are very slim.

[xdeus]

I'm by no means an expert, but I have never heard of a CB snake getting parasites from live prey. The only cases of parasites I've read about were either already existing from WC/CH animals, or transmitted from WC or CH snakes to another CB one.

Most (if not all) of the big breeders will feed exclusively live animals. I doubt they would be doing so if there were any possibility of infecting their collections.

[SatanicIntention]

Species-specific. Mammal parasites aren't able to be transferred to reptiles. Mammal parasites are designed to live in that 100-102 degree body and when they hit that 80-85 degree body, they just die or get digested by the snake's powerful gastric enzymes. Not to mention, when the eggs/parasites are inside the body, they aren't in the infectious stage. It's when an animal ingests the eggs that other animals have excreted(feces), or they drink water that is contaminated(with feces or giardia), that they become infected.

I've done fecals on my colony of mice and they have about 1+(how many eggs per field) pinworm ova on the slide. I've also done fecals on my snakes at varying intervals, and have found digested pinworm eggs on the slides(1 per every 2-4 fields, it takes awhile to find one that actually made it through). This doesn't mean the snakes are infected, it just means that the pinworm eggs inside the mice weren't digested fully when in the stomach, so they're able to pass through with the feces.