Agh internal parasites

Ok. Can you tell me how many pills are needed? I'm sorry, ccs and mLs and everything is running circles in my brain. lol If a snake needs .1 mL how much of a cc is that? Is a mL a specific portion of a cc?

I weighed my female dumeril yesterday.. she's 9960g I weighed the baby sand boa a few weeks ago and she's 6g.

Ok I measured the rest of the snakes

snow corn snake 188g
hog island boa 5560g
jungle carpet 200g

Sorry to ask you again, but what size syringes should I get? I'll get two for each snake (who are getting two medications anyway)

Ok I have another question. I was looking online for praziquantel because it's so darn expensive at petsmart, I wanted to get it cheaper.

Anway, I found Drontal Plus which has praziquantel, pyrantel pamoate, and another drug called febantel. It's for dogs. I wonder if it would work for snakes.. if so then it's only one thing to mix up and administer instead of two different drugs. Here is where I found it: http://www.1800petmeds.com/pgroup.as...SP=dog&MG=22.7

1mL=1cc Same thing, same difference :)

I would get the Drontal Plus as I have no experience with the other drug or what reactions it may/may not cause. Drontal/Droncit can be quite expensive, so if you can find generic Praziquantel, that would be easier on you. I would safely say you would need around 10-15 pills. Some of your snakes may use more than one pill while some may use less than one. You can always get 20 and save them for later.

0.1mL is 0.1cc, some syringes are marked with mL's and some are marked cc's. I switch around so it isn't confusing(even if it seems to be), and it keeps everything on track(hopefully, LoL).

The ones who are getting 2 syringes(or one for each snake if you go with Drontal Plus) are the ones who are at 500g or greater as it is much easier to calculate their dose rather than guess. If you use the Drontal Plus, you could just give each snake their dose for the Praziquantel and be done with it all. Much less hassle. You're going to need a couple different sizes of syringes, but if we can find out each snake's dose, then we can see how many of each size you will need.

Let's do some math here:
Dumeril's weighs 9960g and the dose for Praziquantel is 8mg/kg and the concentration of each pill is 22.7mg/pill.

9.96 x 8 = 79.68 total mg
79.68mg/ 22.7mg = 3.5 total pills for this girl

The formula is Weight in Kg x Recommended Dosage

Concentration of drug(mg/mL or mg/pill)

This will help everyone if they come to be in this situation. It's always good to double check things(and triple check...).

Ok, now it makes sense! I love it when I'm not confused. lol

So you think I should get some drontal plus even though you're not sure about the febantel? I like that both pyrantel and prazi are in the one pill so I only have to give one syringe per snake.

I'm guessing that the 3.5 pills for the dumeril will also contain enough pyrantel to kill the other parasites?

I'm saving your math formula for later use.

I would just get the Drontal Plus and see how that goes for everyone. You can always go pick up a tube of Pyrantel for horses at a feed store and go that route if the drug dosages for the Drontal get to be too small.

Yep, the 3.5 pills the Dum needs should take care of anything and everything(if she has anything).

Ok sounds good! Tomorrow or wednesday I'll figure out how many pills I should order and then get syringes and all that good stuff.

Do you have any tips for administering the meds without letting the snake spit it all out or getting the medicine everywhere but down the snake's throat? lol..

Alright now.. need more help. I used your math formula.. and for example my 12g kingsnake would need .0042 of a pill.. how on earth do I figure that out?

Also does it matter how much water I mix with the pills to administer them, and should I grind up the pills first to make them dissolve better?

Oh and am I going to need to give them this more than once.. like in a week or two, or is once enough to get rid of the parasites?

Just round up and give the snake 0.01-0.02ml. It's nearly impossible to dose that small unless you have a 0.5cc tuberculin syringe(and those are tineensy).

To maintain the proper dosage for everyone, crush each pill up separately and put in 1cc of water. One pill to one cc. Makes it easier.

You would give everyone the meds now and again in two weeks.

Ok will do. thanks! -and I'll let you know how it goes.

Alright.. I found that I have more questions.

I was looking online and found these generic brand wormers. They have pyrantel, praziquantel, and oxantel. Do you think these would be good? They're certainly cheaper. http://www.petshed.com/products/category440.asp I e-mailed them to ask how many mg is in each pill so I know how many I'd need.

Second - will these wormers harm my gravid female cali king?

And finally.. I'm trying to find a place to get syringes online. I found a lot that have removable needles.. are those ok if I just take the needle off, or do I need oral syringes? The oral ones seem to only want to come in boxes of 100.. and I need several sizes so that quickly becomes expensive too.. argh. Insulin syringes are ok? See, I found several here http://www.1800petmeds.com/all.asp?LV=93 but they all say 'for use with this or that specific insulin'. It's all very confusing.. it shouldn't be!

I guess I should just go to the pharmacy, but I don't trust them to have what I need. *sigh*

here's the amounts of the various wormers in those pills I asked about. They're a lot bigger than the other pills. Would these be ok to use?

http://services.apvma.gov.au/Pubcris...ts&pcode=57878

I know this thread is a little over a month old, but I was thinking about preventatively treating all my animals for worms. Shelby, I was wondering how this ended up for you, what product you ended up using? Did you end up getting the generic pills?

Also, I've had to inject Kinky for an RI, but I've never had to stick a syringe in their mouths. I was wondering if there was a good way to go about doing this---ways of holding them, etc.

I just want to keep my guys healthy. Any opinions, suggestions, are welcomed.

Hi, yeah I ended up getting the generic pills. I have seen no sign of parasites since.

For the most part they hated having the syringes in their mouth. I just grasp them firmly behind the head, and take the tip of the syringe (of course no needle) and press it against their lower jaw in the front to pry it open. Stick it down as far as possible and squirt the stuff in. Most of them drank it down immediately.

The generic pills had both ingredients that you needed, right? So you only had to have those single pills, grind them up, and mix them with water (I know I'll have to get weights and measurements)?

Also, since these pills were larger, did you mix them with more water, or still with 1 cc?

Yes.. I dosed it according to the praziquantel amount in the pill. As Becky said, prazi is dosed 8mg per kg of body weight.

I mixed it with 1CC still, though you can calculate it for more dilution if you wish.

Awesome. Thanks for the help April!

No problem. If you run into any snags, I can probably help.

Do you remember the amount of Prazi in a single pill? I figured out how much I need, but I don't know how many pills I'll need.

There is 50mg per pill.

The formula is:

body weight in KG x 8mg of prazi = total mg

total mg divided by 50 mg in a pill = fraction of pill or cc needed for dose. if it's .5 you can give half of a pill, or you can mix a whole pill with 1cc of water and draw up .5cc.

Thanks. I figured all three of my snakes combined will only need one pill---Kinky will need 36 mg, Diablo and 'Cedes 4 mg a piece=45 mg (I need to get definite weights... this is just guesstimation). So I would mix up one ground pill with 1cc of water and draw out .72 cc for Kinky, and .08 cc per BP (probably round up to .10 cc).

Is my math right? I'm confusing myself going back through this.

I'd need their weight in kg to tell you if it's right or not... sorry. hehe

I figured Kinky's weight at around 4.5 kg, and the BPs at around .45 kg

Yes that's correct.. and rounding up to .1cc is fine.

Awesome! Whoot! Lol, I'm excited that I figured it right. Thanks for all the help, April.