Anti parasite medicine for newts?

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keithp

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Keith Petrosky
I was wondering if there is anti-parasite medication you can buy for newts. My newt eats live foods, and the place I got him from was very dirty and he is possibly wild caught, so I was thinking about treating him for internal parasites, just in case he has any, or find a preventative.
 
Various internal parasite treatments are discussed in detail in this thread: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...tium-spp-etc/57531-panacur-flagyl-tigers.html

Other than some suspicions about the newts origins and previous housing what makes you think you should treat for parasites? Are they ill or severely underweight? Any unexplained deaths? I personally would not treat for parasites unless I had good reason to suspect they were the cause of illness. Using treatments preventively may upset natural gut flora unnecessarily. Perhaps it would be better to conduct a faecal examination before considering treatment?
 
Mark is right on the money. Unless you know for sure your newt has parasites, you could be doing more harm than good. In some ways, it's comparable to putting a person through chemotherapy despite not knowing if the person has cancer. If you're worried about parasites, test for them first.
 
keithp said:
I was wondering if there is anti-parasite medication you can buy for newts. My newt eats live foods, and the place I got him from was very dirty and he is possibly wild caught, so I was thinking about treating him for internal parasites, just in case he has any, or find a preventative.
Click to expand...

Hello,

I fully agree with the comments about not treating him without checking for parasites, but would also just like to add in another caution. For some parasites, if he does have a heavy parasite burden, treating with anti-parasitics can kill him as all the parasites die and set up a severe reaction/release toxins inside the body. So in some cases concurrent antiboitics and anti-inflammatory drugs would be advisable.

Bottom line - you are always best to get professional advice, and appropriate tests, before treating amphibians (or any animals), if at all possible.

Hope this helps,

Bruce.
 
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