Tylo updates- want feedback from others

[paris]

well its been more than a year now since the big unexpected windfall of tylos on the market, i know of 4 people including myself here in america who got enough for sustainable breeding colonies. for me the shanjing and the taliangensis have had no real problems that some extra food and vetting couldnt fix, the shanjings not only got into great health but also laid (duds so far) eggs-the taliangensis aside from one or 2 little courtship dances have not been up to much other than begging from strangers and looking cute for the kids. the kwiechows are what i have had problems with, i recently took on 2 more to replace my 2 that died from my original shipment. these were LTC from the same shipment as mine-i recently moved the group to a 75 F location. of the 2 new ones -the larger healthier looking female died today-when looking over the body i noticed nematodes emerging from the cloaca-i pressed to express the fecal matter from the area and got about 8 adult nematodes in the mass. i took this to my vet and they said they were worms that shouldnt be there and so im taking in the whole batch on thursday to get them weighed and dosed for an antiparasitic drug (might be flagyl might be panacure). has anyone else noticed anything like this in their batches? what temps are most of you keeping them at? i do feed alot of worm chunks as food to my guys-could this be a source of getting parasites into their systems? of those who got some in last year-which proved to be the most delicate?(i know one person lost a colony) i have my female here with me at work tonight and plan to take her and my borrowed camera up to the bio lab to dissect her later-i remember one member who lost all of his (kwiechow?)females to a heavy parasite load after he dewormed them and the parasites died enmasse and took down the newts too..... since these are so new and unusual id appreciate any info from successes and failures from other members who have had them as ltc's (thats 'long term captives'-btw...) id like to keep a lifeline open in a post to update and hear from other on what works and what doesnt

 

[foster]

I had 2 losses total (both in the beginning). 1 out of 7 shanjing and 1 out of 5 kweichow. I later ordered 2 more kweichows in the fall and so far all appear to be doing well (except for breeding). The same can be said for the 5 tailangensis that I bought in September.
Chip

 

[justin]

Sorry to hear about the nematode induced death. Generally speaking, worms are pretty safe but one year in early biology, I was dissecting a large earthworm and under the scope, I discovered quite a large infestation of nematodes. So, it is not unheard of.

 

[mark]

I used flagyl for my kweichowensis. Of my 5 animals I lost 1 male to nematodes, despite the flagyl treatment. The excrements of this particular animal were swarming with nematodes.

I also fed my animals with chunks of worm, but haven't had anymore nematode related deaths. Temperatures were kept at about 20C, because if I kept them at lower temperature (<18C) they stopped eating.

 

[paris]

ive got some pics of necropsies to post soon, this years imports are very bad off. mark, flagyl probably doesnt work well for you cause its not really a dewormer-i am using panacure, the trick on the new imports is to only use a light amount cause if it kills off their parasites and they have a high bio load of them then the dead worms will kill the host. the new imports cloacas look fine, the worms are mostly in the lungs, only a few in the digestive tracts, but some had worms inside the body cavity, and the only way i know of them to get there is by burrowing out of organs! there seems to be a disproportionate balance of worms to the newts that look the heathiest..somewhere there has to be a solution out there, hopefully they will be a cb staple soon!

ps...check out this nematode!!

http://www.ento.csiro.au/science/nematodes/nem_monster.gif



(Message edited by paris on July 22, 2005)