Hygiene re Worming Treatment

Hi,

my little horse field has recently been given the all clear following treatment for pinworm, whilst treating I took all of his wooden hides, logs etc out of his table and have left them in the garden over winter.
Will leaving them out in the cold and having washed them with F10 have killed any potential worm eggs?
Am I able to use these again in his table or am I best off buying new ones?
I just would hate to risk him getting worms again.

Thanks

A good soak down of the table and all items used should do it. The biggest issues are the voids in the wood products. I would soak all the items then let them air dry and they should be good for use. IF your table is wood then just add a new coat of sealer for extra piece of mind

Pinworm eggs can only survive about 3 weeks outside a host body. So anything taken away from any source of new eggs and dried out will be OK certainly within a month.

Markw84 said:

Pinworm eggs can only survive about 3 weeks outside a host body. So anything taken away from any source of new eggs and dried out will be OK certainly within a month.

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Just what I was thinking

Kelly.324 said:

Hi,

my little horse field has recently been given the all clear following treatment for pinworm, whilst treating I took all of his wooden hides, logs etc out of his table and have left them in the garden over winter.
Will leaving them out in the cold and having washed them with F10 have killed any potential worm eggs?
Am I able to use these again in his table or am I best off buying new ones?
I just would hate to risk him getting worms again.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Mine went through pinworm treatments once a week to the vet for 3 weeks. I was told by the vet use 10% bleach 90% water to soak the water bowl, hide etc. I had to dump 100# of dirt where he can not get to it outside, wash the container he stays in and replace with fresh dirt. My vet said the type of pinworm is not the same as dogs get and can survive all year round here in central Indiana.

Kelly.324 said:

Hi,

my little horse field has recently been given the all clear following treatment for pinworm, whilst treating I took all of his wooden hides, logs etc out of his table and have left them in the garden over winter.
Will leaving them out in the cold and having washed them with F10 have killed any potential worm eggs?
Am I able to use these again in his table or am I best off buying new ones?
I just would hate to risk him getting worms again.

Thanks

Click to expand...

What are the symptoms of pinworm? How did you know what you were dealing with?

Turdleelewis said:

What are the symptoms of pinworm? How did you know what you were dealing with?

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Mine had a runny nose, I thought he had a RI I took a stool sample and it was pinworms. After treatment no more runny nose. Pinworms were present since birth, I purchased him as a hatchling and it was about 18 month old when he was treated. I feel like a bad Mom but so glad I was able to get my baby better.

Turdleelewis said:

What are the symptoms of pinworm? How did you know what you were dealing with?

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Many consider pinworms a benign, if not beneficial part of the gut fauna of a tortoise. They do not cause symptoms like the runny nose mentioned above. In extremely heavy loads they can create problems as they are stealing nutrients the tortoise could use. In the wild, they do not cause any problems and actually can help in the digestive process. Since the tortoise is a grazer/browser, it moves over a considerable space to eat and defecated and is not constantly reinfecting itself. In captivity this is a different issue. Confined to a small enclosure and especially when kept in groups, the habits of defecating in the drinking water and on the food, constantly reintroduced new eggs back into the tortoise in unusually high loads. So without very good hygiene included in husbandry, the loads will become too high and can lead to lack of weight gain or even weight loss and lethargy.

Same subject, but not really responding to the original poster's question, hope it's ok to post it here:

My tortoise partner told me that the last batch of hatchlings he took home with him from here to sell had parasites and he expressed an opinion that it was because I had included a young tortoise that I'm babysitting for a member in with that group. There's also the fact that Leonard, a yearling I kept back, was also in that same enclosure with that batch of babies. Leonard spent the summer outside as I was trying to transition him out of the Vision Cage and into a more normal-for-tortoises lifestyle. But after a summer of not eating, or eating very little, I finally put him back in the Vision cage.

So did the tortoise I'm watching for a Forum member infect my clutch of babies, or did Leonard pick up the parasites from outside during the summer?

Yvonne G said:

Same subject, but not really responding to the original poster's question, hope it's ok to post it here:

My tortoise partner told me that the last batch of hatchlings he took home with him from here to sell had parasites and he expressed an opinion that it was because I had included a young tortoise that I'm babysitting for a member in with that group. There's also the fact that Leonard, a yearling I kept back, was also in that same enclosure with that batch of babies. Leonard spent the summer outside as I was trying to transition him out of the Vision Cage and into a more normal-for-tortoises lifestyle. But after a summer of not eating, or eating very little, I finally put him back in the Vision cage.

So did the tortoise I'm watching for a Forum member infect my clutch of babies, or did Leonard pick up the parasites from outside during the summer?

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You would just have to test both and if both are positive you'll never really know

Pinworm eggs are extremely hardy. They can remain viable and infectious in the environment for a long time. F10 will not kill pinworm eggs. You are best off purchasing new logs and hides and as Blackdog1714 suggested, recoat the wood of the tortoise table.

JMM said:

Pinworm eggs are extremely hardy. They can remain viable and infectious in the environment for a long time. F10 will not kill pinworm eggs. You are best off purchasing new logs and hides and as Blackdog1714 suggested, recoat the wood of the tortoise table.

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Does this conflict with what Markw84 said earlier? By "a long time" do you mean 3 weeks or more?

While a quick Google search will indicate that human pinworm eggs survive only 2-3 weeks, most authorities agree that veterinary species survive 2-3 months at a minimum. The reality is that determining viability of helminth eggs is very difficult to do. I would err on the side of caution as re-infection is known to readily occur and is likely due to presence of viable eggs in the environment. The other issue is that it is difficult to detect re-infection as it takes 2-3 months from the time a viable egg is ingested before adult worms produce eggs. Thus, you may want to have your tort tested again every couple of months to ensure re-infection has not occurred.