Safety issue feeding earthworms

[mcspin]

I cultured red wrigglers in many of my enclosures and used them as feeders to whomever might like them. They were labeled red wrigglers but other than that I don't know what species they were; definitely not night crawlers, they were rather small.

When you say you cultured them in your enclosures, I don't know what that means. Are you saying you cultured them in the containers that held the snakes? Were the snakes small or large that you were feeding?

[Rushthezeppelin]

I'm assuming he had a setup with a soil mix as substrate in which case red wigglers can live in that just dandy. Some people use them in bioactive enclosures as they are one of many inverts you can put in to help cleanup herp waste. Just obviously a little iffy to do that with garters as I don't think there's enough evidence that they are safe if fed a clean diet.....hopefully we see more study on this subject soon.

[Albert Clark]

I always wondered about the parasitic loads in worms. Nightcrawlers and regular earthworms. I know they are a diet staple and naturally sought after by most garters. Like if they were fed exclusively, but with a very limited varied diet. Is it something that could become problematic? Since Canadian nightcrawlers are very easily obtained just like goldfish and red rosies the real junk food feeder fish.

[Rushthezeppelin]

Afaik Albert, there are no parasites that can affect both worms and herps. They are just too different. And as far as I know they don't even dormantly carry parasites that could be passed on to herps. Probably helps too that they live so far down in the soil where pretty much only ditritovorous bacteria and a few other creatures survive.

[mcspin]

I always wondered about the parasitic loads in worms. Nightcrawlers and regular earthworms. I know they are a diet staple and naturally sought after by most garters. Like if they were fed exclusively, but with a very limited varied diet. Is it something that could become problematic? Since Canadian nightcrawlers are very easily obtained just like goldfish and red rosies the real junk food feeder fish.

I have microscopes and equipment to do fecal smears and intestinal analysis of any critter I decide to culture. It will be the first thing I do with any worms I bring in. I did the same in the past when I brought them in, and didn't find anything. After feeding fish these for years, the fish never came down with any parasites either.

In the fish-raising business, we commonly gut-load worms to get good stuff into our fish. The reverse is easily true, and why I suspect these worms need to be purged before feeding, especially since most of the red wigglers you buy are raised in manure.

[joeysgreen]

Sorry guys, you are greatly mistaken about parasites! Worms, fish, tadpoles, lizards, snakes.... everything that is eaten by something else can be an intermediate host for a parasite. So yes, when you feed your gartersnake any prey item, it can get parasites from that animal. These parasites don't even necessarily have to affect the intermediate host (but there are some pretty fantastic ways that they do in some instances), nor are you likely to observe any signs of parasitism on a fecal analysis of your prey animal. Why? Because as an intermediate host, the parasites are not breeding within and they are more often than not embedded in the muscle or elsewhere; not in the GI tract... so sorry Steve mcspin, but I"ve cautioned others about how a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing... leading to overconfidence, misinterpretation and mistakes. There is more to fecal analysis than having a microscope. I encourage you to keep practicing on your herps, but include a little humility and get a mentor, perhaps a local vet or tech is willing help you out.

So. Wild caught prey item, ie, bait worms, farmed feeder fish, contaminated feeder bugs etc are all potential reservoirs for parasites. If you captive breed these prey items for several generations without the presence of an end-host where parasites can breed (in this case gartersnakes and other reptiles), then you can be fairly certain that you now have a parasite free culture (from the perspective of the predator).

In my previous example, I had low risk cultures as described above, and added them to the substrate of animals that I was comfortable with their overall health and the balance I was offering to their enclosure with the addition of detritovores. They rarely crossed paths, but if they occasionally ate a worm I wasn't worried. If the worm tasted bad, they spit it out. These animals included box turtles, blue tongue skink, mossy tree frogs, veiled chameleon, tokay gecko, mad. giant day gecko and probably others... no garters as it's been a while since I"ve had any captive Thamnophis. As with any multispecies enclosure, there carries some risk, especially if you are inept at monitoring both the animal and it's environment for potential pitfalls. Nonetheless, it can be done, and many people do it, many better than I for certain.

I apologize if I came across as confrontational; I didn't mean such, but add information when I feel it's helpful.

[mcspin]

Because as an intermediate host, the parasites are not breeding within and they are more often than not embedded in the muscle or elsewhere; not in the GI tract... so sorry Steve mcspin, but I"ve cautioned others about how a little bit of knowledge can be a bad thing... leading to overconfidence, misinterpretation and mistakes. There is more to fecal analysis than having a microscope. I encourage you to keep practicing on your herps, but include a little humility and get a mentor, perhaps a local vet or tech is willing help you out.

I have done thousands of examinations of animals for internal parasites. Please name the parasite or the eggs of parasites that I cannot find by opening the worm and examining the contents of the worm?

I apologize if I came across as confrontational; I didn't mean such, but add information when I feel it's helpful.

Apology not accepted joeysgreen. There are far better ways of putting forth a point, even one that is not correct.

[joeysgreen]

You've done thousands of examinations for internal parasites and you havn't heard of larval migration, dead-end hosts, intermediate hosts or any of the thousands of other examples of parasites no in the gastrointestinal tract? Do you not study parasitic life cycles? A simple example is toxoplasmosis. You are more likely to get it from eating uncooked meat from an intermediate or dead-end host than from a cat where the litter box is cleaned on a regular basis.

One of the cool examples I alluded to earlier involves a fluke that enters the eyes and CNS of a snail. It causes the snail (intermediate host) to behave differently, climbing to the top of the grass where it is more likely to be eaten by a bird where the parasite can then reproduce. It is in this bird (definitive host) that you may find eggs in the gastrointestinal system.

GoogleLeucochloridium paradoxum for a neat animal.

Involving frogs and gartersnakes, I"ll copy a bit from Chapter 3, page 128, Figure 3-22 Georgis Parasitology for Veterinarians, Eighth Edition by Dwight D. Bowman

Life history of Alaria marcianae (Diplostomatidae). Miracidia develop in eggs deposited in water, hatch, and enter planorbid snails of the genus Helisoma where they develop into forked-tailed cercariae. Cercariae penetrate the skin and enter the tissues of tadpoles of the leopard frog Rana pipiens where, undergoing only minor changes, they remain as mesocercariae. If the tadpole is eaten by a frog, snake, bird, or mammal, the mesocercariae invade the tissues of these paratenic hosts but again remain mesocercariae....

The definitive host in this case is a cat, but it should illustrate the picture that not all parasites are in the gastrointestinal tract.

I hope this helps.

[mcspin]

There's no need to jump to conclusions or to continue with your rudeness. You have no clue as to what I know and what experience I have. I've treated for parasites that came from intermediate hosts several times. They were one of the more simple to eradicate. Simply treat the animal for the adult parasite and then break the life cycle of the parasite and they're gone. To do this is not difficult. Separate the intermediate host from the snake for a period of time. Eventually, the intermediate host will have eaten all the viable parasite eggs and the resulting larval stage will have died off. De-worm the original snake and then put the "clean" animals back together. I've done this type of treatment several times with intermediate hosts and it worked every time. This would be very easy to do with earthworms in an indoor culture and snakes in an enclosure.

There are several other way to handle parasite problems - all very easy to do if you know the procedure. Testing for their presence in your animal is also not that difficult.

[joeysgreen]

If you feel it imperative, certainly fill in your experience so I am not making assumptions.

You are correct in that the simple way to solve a problem with an indirect life-cycle parasite is to separate the necessary hosts. You are incorrect in thinking that in time an animal will somehow be clear of these parasites, which are often encysted in the muscle or other tissue indefinitely. Nor can you detect these parasites by means already discussed.