WC Melleri parasite treatment

[Nicodemayo]

God that black mouth looks evil hah! Kat, what happened to you wanting Pinks?!

 

[Kat77]

God that black mouth looks evil hah! Kat, what happened to you wanting Pinks?!

I still do! I've got that all figured out though. And honestly, I've wanted a Meller's longer. I just wasn't ever finding any, until these WC people and Mike!

 

[Kat77]

Juli,
Eric double triple convinced me, but you and your baby Meller's have triple quadriple convinced me! What a little cutie pie! And so opinionated!

 

[Eric Adrignola]

Some WC melleri come in with filiarial worms that can be removed with ivermectin or surgery. Ivermectin WILL kill your chameleon if there are too many worms, or the worms are too large - the bodies of the dead worms will lead to a nasty internal infection.

Some of these worms may get large. At least one very experienced melleri keeper had an otherwise perfectly acclimated LTC adult melleri drop dead for no apparent reason. It was a very large worm, that did not die from panacur treatments, that did not lay eggs that show up in fecal tests (it's a filiarial worm, spread by mosquitos, likely).

It penetrated a major blood vessel or aorta or something - killed the thing directly!

The only way to remove these would be major surgery - not just under the skin, but inside the animals body cavity!

Unless these were treated with (probably MORE deadly on average) ivermectin, there's not a thing you can do. It might just be a lottery - IS your animal infected with a time-bomb worm? Is it not?

I think 6 animals were recieved in the same shipment - 2 died from these.

not that you needed any more convincing, but still, it's good to know.

 

[chamlover]

Eric,
Now you have me worried. I have a w/c melleri, well i have had him for quite some time. He is doing well and all but i just had another fecal done on him ( the first one was not clean and he was treated) and the vet says that he say red blood cells in there that usually means they have parasites but yet nothing showed up. Now mine didn't obviously come in that shipment, but do you think it is possible that might be what my guy might have and just didn't show up? How do you tell if they have it if it doesn't usually show up in fecals?

Debby

 

[Kat77]

Some WC melleri come in with filiarial worms that can be removed with ivermectin or surgery. Ivermectin WILL kill your chameleon if there are too many worms, or the worms are too large - the bodies of the dead worms will lead to a nasty internal infection.

Some of these worms may get large. At least one very experienced melleri keeper had an otherwise perfectly acclimated LTC adult melleri drop dead for no apparent reason. It was a very large worm, that did not die from panacur treatments, that did not lay eggs that show up in fecal tests (it's a filiarial worm, spread by mosquitos, likely).

It penetrated a major blood vessel or aorta or something - killed the thing directly!

The only way to remove these would be major surgery - not just under the skin, but inside the animals body cavity!

Unless these were treated with (probably MORE deadly on average) ivermectin, there's not a thing you can do. It might just be a lottery - IS your animal infected with a time-bomb worm? Is it not?

I think 6 animals were recieved in the same shipment - 2 died from these.

not that you needed any more convincing, but still, it's good to know.

YIKES! So what if I want to get a WC one day, once I have experienced Meller's keeping a little bit...what can you look for in the animal, if anything to know if they have the "time bomb worm"? That makes me so nervous!