I have an 8 year old doe with coccidiosis on day 4 of treatment now.
Her faecal Oocyst count has reduced dramatically from nearly 10,000/g down to 800 over the first 3 days.
However her faeces texture after improving a lot initially is now worsening again - perhaps because I quit the bentonite clay (anti-diarrhoea) too early.
She also has developed bottle jaw and anaemia since starting treatment.
She has 2 kids approx 1 month old.
She is OK with eating green pasture browse (our main source of feed), but not taking her grain except starting a small nibble the last day or two.
I'm concerned about the conflicting progression of symptoms (although her oocyst count has reduced, why is she not really improving much otherwise, am I watching a patient going downhill without knowing it?)
Below is Leia's illness and treatment calender so far ... what do you all think of her progress? What else can I do for her?
I am giving her Iron and B vitamins. Also Probiotics etc.
The treatment I am using is Amprolium 12% solution.
I don't really have another option at this point ... this is what I have, it's the only 'over the counter' cocci med in NZ which I got a litre of years ago.
Baycox can be acheived from a vet, but the smallest bottle available is NZ$200-300 and I simply don't have that much money this week (my horse injured herself recently and we're already paying off vet bills for 2 months:-()
**
Development of illness: Approximately 1 week before diagnosis and treatment we first saw 'someone' up the shed had slightly soft faeces ...lumps of pebbles at first, slowly getting softer ... we had just moved them all to new (lush green) grazing we figured that was what the quite green soft poop was about.
But it slowly got worse until we ID'd our herd queen Leia at the stage of soft 'plops' verging to thicker runniness. At the same time she went 'off' her grain. This was late at night: I drenched her for worms, an easy explanation for 95% of problems here.
**
Day 1 of treatment for cocci: in the morning she was miserable-er and a bit hunched, faeces still ploppy ... I ran a Mcmaster count and found 9600 per gram coccidia Oocysts.
I started her on the amprolium at 50mg/kg split in 2 twice daily doses (theoretically a treatment course for 5 days).
I also started her on probiotics with anti-microbial peptides (compound powder intended to prevent cocci in chickens feed) and a herbal anti-cocci mix to boot. I also began giving her B vitamins compound daily, and for the first 2 days I gave Bentonite Clay for the diarrhoea.
**
Day 2: her poop was firming and suddenly returned to pebbles, with a Oocyst count of 6400, approximately 25% of which oocysts appeared 'non-viable' ... deformed, looking empty, lacking a yolk.
In the morning, she beat everyone through the gate to pasture!
Yesterdays treatments continued. She picked at a little grain.
By evening she developed a large bottle jaw and her eyelid became anaemic (I had expected both these symptoms but earlier, not after treatment ...)
I gave her 3ml oral iron solution that night. She seemed a bit weak ... in fairness she tripped over a log backing away from the iron syringe, but she still shouldn't fall over in the hind legs.
**
Day 3: I stopped the bentonite clay (as she had faecal pebbles already, and bentonite can bind dietary minerals like iron ... she's anaemic so I didn't want to continue it unnecessarily ...)
I also gave her a B12 injection, began giving her 5ml oral iron solution daily, upped her B vitamins with additional 'people pills' of methyl folate (which is a more absorbable form for a sick gut than folic acid) methyl B12, and vitamin K.
She picked at a little grain that evening and does not appear weak anymore ... But her faeces is again softer by then ... stretchy logs turning to shapeless blobs on impact.
Count of now 800 oocysts per gram (crack the champagne moment!) of which 50% appear nonviable.
**
Day 4 (this morning) her faeces is back to 'small soft plops' ... some of which she dropped involuntarily while struggling over this morning's amprolium drench, so that faeces is getting much thinner again.
The bottle jaw is softer this morning ... but bottle jaw does tend to go down over night anyway as they graze with their head down and sleep with it up ...
She really tried to elude her medicine, maybe she feels a little better. But the others all broke out and went down the paddock themselves, she went up the drive to graze alone without even her kids, so she doesn't feel well at all.
**
I intend to continue the same course of treatment today, with the addition of a little bentonite some hours after her iron, because I think the reversal from pebbles back to plops might be just because I cut the bentonite too soon/suddenly.
I have ordered a product called "Blud Boost", which is an Equine powdered Iron/B vitamins etc product similar to Red cell which I cannot find locally.
I hope that may be a bit more effective than the current mix I am giving her, at least it is one product intended for the purpose, with one balanced dose rate. It will arrive by mail in a couple of days. I was going to get it in town after the weekend but it said "Low stock nationwide" so I mail ordered it immediately rather than miss out altogether.
I'm about to run out of my 1 litre amprolium, I have enough to finish her 5 day treatment, maybe another day or two.
It seems to be doing it's job judging by the Oocyst count (which I'm happy is reducing very rapidly).
I intend to replace it with baycox for future use as soon as I can afford to.
Any thoughts, suggestions at this point?
Her faecal Oocyst count has reduced dramatically from nearly 10,000/g down to 800 over the first 3 days.
However her faeces texture after improving a lot initially is now worsening again - perhaps because I quit the bentonite clay (anti-diarrhoea) too early.
She also has developed bottle jaw and anaemia since starting treatment.
She has 2 kids approx 1 month old.
She is OK with eating green pasture browse (our main source of feed), but not taking her grain except starting a small nibble the last day or two.
I'm concerned about the conflicting progression of symptoms (although her oocyst count has reduced, why is she not really improving much otherwise, am I watching a patient going downhill without knowing it?)
Below is Leia's illness and treatment calender so far ... what do you all think of her progress? What else can I do for her?
I am giving her Iron and B vitamins. Also Probiotics etc.
The treatment I am using is Amprolium 12% solution.
I don't really have another option at this point ... this is what I have, it's the only 'over the counter' cocci med in NZ which I got a litre of years ago.
Baycox can be acheived from a vet, but the smallest bottle available is NZ$200-300 and I simply don't have that much money this week (my horse injured herself recently and we're already paying off vet bills for 2 months:-()
**
Development of illness: Approximately 1 week before diagnosis and treatment we first saw 'someone' up the shed had slightly soft faeces ...lumps of pebbles at first, slowly getting softer ... we had just moved them all to new (lush green) grazing we figured that was what the quite green soft poop was about.
But it slowly got worse until we ID'd our herd queen Leia at the stage of soft 'plops' verging to thicker runniness. At the same time she went 'off' her grain. This was late at night: I drenched her for worms, an easy explanation for 95% of problems here.
**
Day 1 of treatment for cocci: in the morning she was miserable-er and a bit hunched, faeces still ploppy ... I ran a Mcmaster count and found 9600 per gram coccidia Oocysts.
I started her on the amprolium at 50mg/kg split in 2 twice daily doses (theoretically a treatment course for 5 days).
I also started her on probiotics with anti-microbial peptides (compound powder intended to prevent cocci in chickens feed) and a herbal anti-cocci mix to boot. I also began giving her B vitamins compound daily, and for the first 2 days I gave Bentonite Clay for the diarrhoea.
**
Day 2: her poop was firming and suddenly returned to pebbles, with a Oocyst count of 6400, approximately 25% of which oocysts appeared 'non-viable' ... deformed, looking empty, lacking a yolk.
In the morning, she beat everyone through the gate to pasture!
Yesterdays treatments continued. She picked at a little grain.
By evening she developed a large bottle jaw and her eyelid became anaemic (I had expected both these symptoms but earlier, not after treatment ...)
I gave her 3ml oral iron solution that night. She seemed a bit weak ... in fairness she tripped over a log backing away from the iron syringe, but she still shouldn't fall over in the hind legs.
**
Day 3: I stopped the bentonite clay (as she had faecal pebbles already, and bentonite can bind dietary minerals like iron ... she's anaemic so I didn't want to continue it unnecessarily ...)
I also gave her a B12 injection, began giving her 5ml oral iron solution daily, upped her B vitamins with additional 'people pills' of methyl folate (which is a more absorbable form for a sick gut than folic acid) methyl B12, and vitamin K.
She picked at a little grain that evening and does not appear weak anymore ... But her faeces is again softer by then ... stretchy logs turning to shapeless blobs on impact.
Count of now 800 oocysts per gram (crack the champagne moment!) of which 50% appear nonviable.
**
Day 4 (this morning) her faeces is back to 'small soft plops' ... some of which she dropped involuntarily while struggling over this morning's amprolium drench, so that faeces is getting much thinner again.
The bottle jaw is softer this morning ... but bottle jaw does tend to go down over night anyway as they graze with their head down and sleep with it up ...
She really tried to elude her medicine, maybe she feels a little better. But the others all broke out and went down the paddock themselves, she went up the drive to graze alone without even her kids, so she doesn't feel well at all.
**
I intend to continue the same course of treatment today, with the addition of a little bentonite some hours after her iron, because I think the reversal from pebbles back to plops might be just because I cut the bentonite too soon/suddenly.
I have ordered a product called "Blud Boost", which is an Equine powdered Iron/B vitamins etc product similar to Red cell which I cannot find locally.
I hope that may be a bit more effective than the current mix I am giving her, at least it is one product intended for the purpose, with one balanced dose rate. It will arrive by mail in a couple of days. I was going to get it in town after the weekend but it said "Low stock nationwide" so I mail ordered it immediately rather than miss out altogether.
I'm about to run out of my 1 litre amprolium, I have enough to finish her 5 day treatment, maybe another day or two.
It seems to be doing it's job judging by the Oocyst count (which I'm happy is reducing very rapidly).
I intend to replace it with baycox for future use as soon as I can afford to.
Any thoughts, suggestions at this point?