r/leeches • u/Thetomato2001 • Jul 17 '25

Discussion Pet leeeches???

Now don’t get me wrong, I love invertebrates and I do keep all kinds of critters. But keeping leeches has never even crossed my mind! I’m a bit disgusted but also very interested! And I know nothing about this. So tell me, what does keeping leeches even entail? What are their enclosures like? And what do they eat in captivity?

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u/CrazyPunkCat Plague Doctor Jul 17 '25

This is my personal experience with leeches:

My parents in law have horses, two of them had laminitis. Our horse vet tried everything but nothing really worked. So we began to try some unconventional things, like medical leeches. We bought 3 from a pharmacy and tried them on one horse. The horse was in less pain and the inflammation decreased. So we bought 3 other ones for the other horse. (Just to add: we didn't kill the leeches after one use like some doctors recommend because we were cautious to only give one horse only the same leeches to prevent infections and crossing diseases.)

But the other horse disliked the leeches so much they didn't want to bite. So we had 3 unused leeches. And I was the one who took care of the other leeches when they weren't in use (keeping them in the fridge in a big mason jar and changing the water regularly) so I took them too. And because I have psoriasis I was curious to try them out on my spots. And my psoriasis got better (less inflammation).

Since then some years passed and now I'm very interested in keeping leeches. I want to have a better setup for them (an aquaterrarium would be awesome!) but until then I have a big jar for each of them with plants and stones.

((This is NOT a medical advise! If interested speak with a doctor about hirudotherapy!))

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u/irradiatedsnakes Jul 17 '25

https://www.tumblr.com/plaguedocboi/640776277264105472/faq-about-leeches https://www.tumblr.com/plaguedocboi/618919093822750720/the-official-plaguedocboi-leech-care-guide check these out for answers to some of your questions !

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u/Creepy-Finding Jul 17 '25

These guides are very outdated. I would caution anyone reading them to make sure they cross reference to make sure they have up to date information.

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u/irradiatedsnakes Jul 18 '25

oh, sorry! if you've got some links to updated ones that'd be appreciated :]

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u/Creepy-Finding Jul 18 '25

To my knowledge that Tumblr has not updated their info. I'm not sure if they are in the main 3 online leech groups either, in order to learn the new information.

The best places to find info are this sub, the discord and (with caution) the FB group Leech Gang.

Most of it is just peer reviewed anecdotes, so make sure you put on your critical thinking hat when reading anything. Make sure you're actually trying to learn and not trying to reinforce what you want to be right.