My tortoise is having parasites. Help needed.

[Chike]

Hello, I've have two African tortoise for two years. I noticed one of them have white long worms in his poop. I've looked on internet for research and found that Panacur is best solution. However, I live in Morocco and Panacur does exist but for other animals (dog, horses...). Should I use the same one? And for how long my tortoise should be treated?
Ps: I can't afford taking her to the vet.

 

[Yvonne G]

Well, you're going to have to go to a vet, because we can't give out the dosages here on the Forum. Most of us use the Panacur horse de-wormer, but since you'll be buying yours in Morocco, we would have no idea the strength of the medication. Since de-wormer medication is actually poison (how else would it kill parasites?), if we give you the dosage for a Panacur of a different strength, we run the risk of killing your tortoise. Maybe you can just make some phone calls and tell them the strength of the medication and they will tell you what doseage to use on the tortoise.

 

[Tom]

Also, Panacur doesn't work on all worms, so you might be dosing your animals with toxic chemicals that they don't need and won't do any good anyhow. You'll need to ID the worms before you can successfully treat them. Further some worms are commensal and good for the tortoise, so again, it would be wise to ID exactly what you have before treating. You will also need to tell the vet the weight of your tortoises to get the proper doses.

Are the tortoises eating well and healthy? If yes, it would be better to let them live with the worms, than to risk incorrectly medicating them and killing them, in my opinion. Many types of worms are self eliminating over time too.

Be careful. Worming them isn't always the best way to go, especially when you don't know what you are dealing with.

 

[Chike]

Thanks for replying.

@Yvonne G : I've looked in MSD animal health for Panacur. I've found Panacur 2,5%(100 ml) and this one for horses (18,75g /excipient 100g)

@Tom : I agree that not having them on anti parasites is better but I've read that worm kill reptiles, that's why I wanted to treat them. For you question about being healthy, The one with the parasites is eating and active during the all year except winter but his size haven't grown as much as the other tortoise. The other tortoise have grown twice his size.

 

[Tom]

Tortoises should not be housed in pairs. Regardless of any worms or parasites. One tortoise in a pair almost always grow much faster than the other. The added stress could also be contributing to your parasite problem, if there is one. I would move the big one into his own enclosure, leave the smaller one where he is, and then start charting his growth. In most cases they will start growing much faster once they are on their own and away from the tyranny of their previous tormentor.

Here is a thread explaining the "pair" thing more: http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/pairs.34837/

What species of African Tortoise are we talking about?

 

[Chike]

Thanks, I didn't know that tortoises oppress each other. I'm new to this . Though they live in very spacious enclosure, and I didn't see the need to have them in separate enclosures. I'll separate them then.

They're african spurred tortoise. They're still babies. I don't know the exact age.

 

[Tom]

Well welcome to the forum Chike. Lots of sulcata tortoise keepers here.
Here are some threads that you might find helpful:
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/how-to-raise-a-healthy-sulcata-or-leopard-version-2-0.79895/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/for-those-who-have-a-young-sulcata.76744/
http://www.tortoiseforum.org/threads/beginner-mistakes.45180/