Thanks Pesky for your rage virus post. It reminded me of a question I had.
Those of you who do a large quantity of coon skinning and gland harvesting.. What would you say the percentage would be of the coon with round worm or other parasites?

Probably not the right forum but, a coworker trapped a coon on a roof the other day and it was completely infested with round worm.
We always take necessary precautions but, just curious about the average numbers of infected.

I would say every coon has worms . Not sure if the worms your coworker found where round worm . I'm very hardcore when it comes the harvest of fur . I wouldn't do any skinning without rubber gloves these days . Theres been a few guys here in Michigan get very sick from skiining without gloves .

Now I'm not a vet so I only know what I've seen. The raccoons that had worms, had droppings that were crawling with them. Because I'm the same old guy that never heard of ear plugs, I never heard of gloves either. ( And I've skinned thousands ) Growing up on a farm, I'm sure makes the difference. I've never had any animal related diseases but I bet I given a few animals human diseases!

I worked at a fur buyer growing up and none of us ever wore gloves . Good old bud Pruit of Pontiac lk rd cash money buyer back in the hay day . I can remember eating hambugers without even washing my hands first . Things have changed now and people are getting sick from skiining . We have much higher populations of animals now . Out traping all day you get your hands all cut up and then you skun rats half the night with open cuts on your hands not a good idea . it also keeps your hands clean . There's all different kinds of worms in animals . Moose get this nasty worm that looks like tadpole in its meat . We got one like that after my buddy shot the oldest moose in Ontario . We tried cutting it up real small and removing them things and then ground the whole thing up into burger but after two nights of that there was no way I could eat it . They pick it up after eating wolf crap and the wolf get it after eating moose . A vet needs a micro scope to see worms in dog crap . There not all large and can be seen by eye . All domestic animals get worms and need to be dewormed . I got my pup getter done water dog he came with worms and got real sick and wouldn't eat . They wound have killed him and after him craping in my house I never seen any worms . Took him to the vet they said worms .

I saw a seminar and the speaker said about 80 percent carry roundworm.

So Pesky, you ever been de-wormed? Me neither. Talking about cuts and skinning; after a couple of hours in the skinning room, ( sorry Pesky, mine was not in the middle of the living room ) I got a little careless and cut one of my fingers. It wouldn't quit bleeding and made this funny popping sound when I opened and closed my fist. The doctor was East Indian and told me that I had cut a tendon and that HE WOULD TRY TO SAVE THE FINGER! I was on the operating table for a while. Stitches inside the finger and outside to close it. I developed a new respect for our friends from Calcutta.

Keep in mind that the animal doesn't have to be infected to have the eggs on them. Just by walking through an area containing eggs any animal could have them attach to their fur. I'm sure Justin could give a better explanation of this along with how the parasite infects someone and the estimated number of infected. I've heard 80% -95% of the raccoon population has some sort of infection. My take is to just say 100% since the chances of dealing with a non-infected raccoon is less than dealing with an infected one.

It does make you wonder if the raccoons in Germany and Japan also are infected.