Feeder's parasite - where do they come from? (long)

[gothra]

Ok, if anyone can remember a long time ago, I posted about my geckos having pinworms that I couldn't get rid of; then later discovered that it wasn't my geckos that had pinworms, it was the roaches that I fed them had pins. I then discarded my whole colony, and started all over from a reliable source. I no longer get the egg-cartons from the food market, instead, I bought a whole box of clean, new egg cartons just to be safe. And I also checked the roaches' feces for parasites twice a year. I had been very happy until today.

Well, I picked out 3 roaches and squeezed till they have something come out from their behind, and then looked from a microscope. I found 1 pinworm egg again!! I had done 3-4 checks before and all the results had been clean. I don't understand where this pinworm egg come from. I clean my roach tubs once every 3 months, I soak the tubs in bleach water for several hours before I wash them in soap water. I use new egg crates, I feed them fresh fruits and human grade organic stuff.

I don't understand how after almost 2 years of clean roaches, suddenly I have a pinworm egg in there. I guess the only "good" part is I only see ONE pinworm egg in there, which is very little compared to what I saw with the previous infestation (I saw actual pinworms swimming around and 10+ eggs).

How common is this? I suppose not many people will squeeze their feeders for poops to check for parasites. I definately will not notice it if I hadn't done the routine check. I don't think its affecting my geckos though, they are still very happy, nice and fat.

Do I need to deworm my roaches? I have no idea how to do it.
Or is the occasional one or two pinworm eggs is acceptable?

p.s. I tweezer feed my geckos, so there is no uneaten food thrown back to the tub.

 

[FelanMoira]

even organic human grade food stuffs, especially fruits/veggies may have come in contact with pinworms. Certain pinworms are found in rabbits and many organic farmers use rabbit waste to fertilize with (I do) and sometimes DE doesn't always get all the worms. People can even have pinworms (i'm not sure if they are the same species or not) and not know it, so, not saying you or your family are dirty at all, but you may have infected your roach colony if you picked them up somewhere (even a sandbox in a park).
I don't know that the deworming agents won't kill the roaches.

 

[gothra]

I picked another 4 roaches to look at the feces, 3 of them showed nothing, and one I'm not 100% sure. I then did fecal floats for 3 of my geckos, all of them are clean. So I suppose I'm not in the "danger zone" at the moment.

I thought of 2 possibilities of how my roaches could've come into contact with pinworms; the first is from the carrots - maybe I didn't wash them good enough, as sometimes there are dirt sticking on the skin. Or 2nd possibility, from small flies in the house. I had some small flies in the house last month due to bad weather (there aren't any now). Perhaps they had fly into my roach bin to eat their food, then transmitted the worms? If this is the case, then I have no way to prevent it. This is so frustrating!

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Bonnie, keep in mind that there are more than one type of 'pinworm', and since they have a direct life cycle, they cannot infect more than one host at the same time.

 

[HepCatMoe]

hey, just curious how do you know your geckos have pinworms? you see them wiggling in the poop?

 

[gothra]

Bonnie, keep in mind that there are more than one type of 'pinworm', and since they have a direct life cycle, they cannot infect more than one host at the same time.

Marcia, so if I see a pinworm egg in my roaches' poop, that means the roaches have pinworms themselves; and they could not have gotten it from the small flies? Then could they have gotten it from the dirt off the carrot skin? Sorry I'm a little confused here. So for now, I think I'll cut down on the size of my roach colony first (maybe keeping around 25 adults only); I have way too many roaches for my 9 geckos. The weather has been very humid recently, perhaps the humidity and the "crowdiness" of my tub escalated the problem? Then I'll try to deworm the adult if that is possible, I'll give that a go.

Do you think its ok to continue feeding my geckos these roaches nymphs at the moment?

HepCatMoe, you need to do fecal tests (floatation or smears) to know if your geckos carry any type of parasites. I have a microscope and Klingenberg's book, if I see any thing unusual in their feces, I'll take my geckos to our vet for proper diagnosis.

 

[gothra]

Do you think its ok to continue feeding my geckos these roaches nymphs at the moment?

Oh nevermind, I just got rid of my whole colony except for 20 females. I ordered some panacur online, see if I can deworm those female roaches. If that is not successful, I might just go back to the mealworm only days...

Went through an old email that my vet sent to me, she said pinworms are species specific and therefore, my geckos and I should be safe. But its just very uncomfortable knowing that my feeders carry pinworms. Whats even worse is I have no idea how to prevent them in the future.

When I was going through the tub for the best looking females, I saw the hundreds of adults and countless baby roaches; and I have to send them all to death. I feel so bad.