NEED ADVICE on experiences with maggots/worms and feces

[ontariosnakelover]

Hey everyone I'm kind of just panic writing so forgive me. Went to work, came home, and started checking stuff getting ready for a feeding night for my balls. My yellow belly Iris and my ivory boy Eros have been together for a couple weeks which got me a bit more paranoid

Sorry, came home, smelled fresh hot poops and checked the enclosure , one of them, for size reasons I believe the girl, made a big old poop in her water dish. As I grabbed the dish I instantly noticed a bunch of lil maggots or such in and around the poop. I keep thinking and hoping it was maggots but I don't know. I took the snakes out, separated and quarantined them elsewhere after a check and cleaning of their bodies, went through the substrate ( coco) and before tossing it, didn't find any such bugs of any kind. So it was isolated in the poop.
Now I just want to say that in my area, I'm having an annoying time with fruitflies/drain flies and have a couple vinegar traps around. I bring this up only to think of a situation where a stupid fly of sorts maybe laid eggs in the poop I didn't see before leaving for work or during the night, and maybe the eggs hatched and that is what I saw. Little white baby maggots.crawlimg around.
On the other hand I'm aware that there's some parasites and or worms of sorts that could be inside my snakes bodies or some situation like that, but I have little experience myself and I really want to be more confident about.my decision in going forward if I believe finding a vet is warranted. The paranoia makes me want to right away.
This is the first time I've seen this before and none of my other 8 snake in the room have anything like this going on. I can wait to see if she poops again or if her boyfriend poops to check the feces but I'm just kind of panicking with my thoughts.

Any advice would be welcomed

[Lord Sorril]

Not sure if it is the same insect, but, I have something similar in the warmer months. I've never examined them closely, but, mine are about the same size as fruit-flies and while they can fly...they prefer short hops.

I know they come from the environment because sometimes they contaminate my incubation egg boxes and occasionally start to propagate once hatchlings begin to emerge.

The ones I have are nothing more than an annoyance.

[Malum Argenteum]

A photo of the worms/larvae would help a lot. Could be FFs or drain flies -- you can look up photos to see if either of those look familiar. Intestinal worms look like worms (not like maggots).

Some things worth mentioning:

Having a vet lined up (i.e. being in their client database) is a very good idea. This way when (not if) a problem does crop up, you're not some rando with an emergency that they will not want to bump their established clients for. A good way to get that connection started might be to get your collection tested for intestinal parasites (which this probably isn't, but it would be a fine excuse to introduce your collection to a vet).

Controlling pathogen vectors in a collection should be a priority (even if the animals were all properly QTed and pathogen tested, which seems less than likely if there's no vet connection). Insect problems are worth more than a couple vinegar traps, especially if the health status of the animals in the collection is mostly an unknown. Completely eliminating/sealing off food sources for the insects (human food, animal food, trash, drains) and engaging in some serious general cleaning helps a lot. Most of the remainder can be caught with a lot of sticky traps (I like these for under enclosure vents to catch insects as they're crawling to or from the vents: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1 )

[ontariosnakelover]

Thanks for your inputs. I totally did think of taking the picture of the feces in the bowl but honestly it didn't come to mind first thing. My brain immediately wanted to get rid of the bowl so I could rush back to the enclosure to pull them out and do a thorough check of scales, cloaca and possible openings . Even if it wasn't warranted, I thought maggot larvae and started over thinking.
Not too many exotic vets in my area in Ontario Canada but I did find one that has a couple specialized vets for reptiles at a vet hospital that I want to get in touch with. I'm just your everyday factory worker so I try to do as much right as home before paying for a vet, but these babies mean a lot to me so I'm most definitely gonna see about getting some tests done on my collection or at the very least the animals in question.
With the summer hot and humid weather were having, and having Ff or DF flying around, I'm really hoping it was just a case of eggs laid in the poop or maybe just in standing water of the bowl before I could change it.
Aside from googling stuff online, I have little experience with what flies birth what kind of larvae and/or what snake parasites may look like. From every thing I've experienced, the little worms in the poopy water bowl, look like tiny freshly hatched maggot larvae. Like a centimeter long at the most, ( maybe quarter inch) white, and when you looked closely you could see a dark bit inside them which could be organs or.the feces being eaten or something .

[Armiyana]

The drain flies are really obnoxious this time of year.

They even lay eggs in my filtered cat water bowl. A poopy water dish is heaven for them. I just had to tear down a hatchling tub because of that. I didn't know how many crawled out into the bedding. =\

You can always grab a sample from them next time and ask the vet to run a fecal test. A lot of vets will run the test whenever you bring poop by, but if there Iis a positive result they'll need to see your pet for an exam before the prescribed any medicine.