dosage for dimetridazole?

[tofupup]

Hi there,

I have been using metrodiazanole on a turkey who was diagnosed w/ blackhead. He's been on it for the last 2 weeks and is not improving. I got ahold of some dimetridazole, but I cannot find out the dosage (in mg/kg) for turkeys since it is pretty much banned in poultry. Can anyone advise? My vet won't give me the dosage since she doesn't want to get in trouble and I don't think she could find it anyway since it's not listed in any formularies, except for budgies and pigeons. Would you just extrapolate the dosage for turkeys from what budgies and pigeons would take?


Thank you for any help.

 

[R2elk]

Hi there,

I have been using metrodiazanole on a turkey who was diagnosed w/ blackhead. He's been on it for the last 2 weeks and is not improving. I got ahold of some dimetridazole, but I cannot find out the dosage (in mg/kg) for turkeys since it is pretty much banned in poultry. Can anyone advise? My vet won't give me the dosage since she doesn't want to get in trouble and I don't think she could find it anyway since it's not listed in any formularies, except for budgies and pigeons. Would you just extrapolate the dosage for turkeys from what budgies and pigeons would take?


Thank you for any help.

Either look through some of the threads on blackhead in turkeys or PM @casportpony

She has posted the proper dosage multiple times.

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I actually don't know what the dimetridazole amount is because I use metronidazole, and from what I know about it, it's not as safe as the metronizazole, and since these powders are made overseas, getting the correct dose could be tricky. One of my books says that the dose is 20-50 mg/kg per day. I think the OP has Medpet 40%, which means that one gram of powder should have 400 mg dimetridazole, but unless you have a gram scale, it's just a wild guess as to how much one gram is. If the container came with a scoop, then one might be able to get a more accurate dose?

FWIW, one teaspoon of most powders will weigh 2.7 to 3.3 grams.

 

[casportpony]

This is the formulary I read:
http://avianmedicine.net/content/uploads/2013/03/09_therapeutic_agents.pdf

 

[casportpony]

@Sydney Acres , do you know what the dimetridazole dose for poultry is?

 

[casportpony]

@tofupup, how is he this morning?

 

[casportpony]

I found the article below. It's for treating canker in pigeons, but it does have some useful information about the different drugs used to treat blackhead (histomoniasis)

Quote: Source: http://www.auspigeonco.com.au/Articles/Race_Form_Part1.html

 

[tofupup]

He's looking pretty crappy this morning, 15 hours after the dimetridazole dosage.

If the metronidazole had done anything but make him worse over the last two weeks, then I would have stuck with that. I am waiting for the vet to call me back.

 

[Sydney Acres]

I cannot find any references for dimetridazole in my usual formularies. It is a banned substance in both the US and Canada, and many other places. However, I did find a document online from Australia, an 87 page PDF detailing the data considered for banning it decades ago. http://apvma.gov.au/sites/default/files/publication/15036-dimetridazole-final-report.pdf
In this document is a table showing how the product was used, table 3 on page 41. I tried to copy and paste the table here, but it didn't work very well. It looks like it was a medication that was put in the feed, at a feed mill, although there are also some water dosages. You can probably do the math and bring it down to an average daily dose based on how much an average turkey should eat. There is a six-fold difference between the minimum recommended for prevention, and the maximum recommend for treatment. You would want to stay in the upper 1/3 of the range between those minimum and maximums for effective treatment.

Other sources:

Here is what I found on a website from China that exports the drug as a powder (which is probably counterfeit, and hopefully only contains chalk instead of poison). I would not recommend this as a reference, except that it is the only reference stating that it should not be used for more than 10 days:
Notice:
poultry ues,not successive for 10 days.
Dosage and usage:
feed premix for pig,1000-2500g/1000kg feed.for chicken,400-2500g/1000kg feed


Here is another source from an article in a chemistry journal called Analyst in 1975, talking about analyzing for the drug:
Dimetridazole (1,2-dimethy1-5-nitroimidazole) is a feed additive used for the control of blackhead in turkeys and for the treatment of haemorrhagic dysentery in pigs. The usual
content in feedstuffs is 125-150 mg kg-l.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...pre-mixes_by_high-speed_liquid_chromatography



Here is a reference to individual chicken hens being given the medication for research to determine what dose would still produce a residue in the eggs. I'm not sure if this is a therapeutic dose or not, as the purpose of the research was to see how low the dosage could be and still produce eggs that contained the drug. But I don't get the impression that the high dosage killed the birds, so at least it's a place to start. Typically, turkeys and chickens are treated with the same drug dosages.
Residues of dimetridazole in eggs after treatment of laying hens.

Posyniak A1, Semeniuk S, Zmudzki J, Niedzielska J, Biernacki B.
Author information


Abstract

Laying hens were dosed orally with dimetridazole (DMZ) (50 and 250 mg/kg) for 3 days or intramuscularly (50 mg/kg), also for 3 days, and the residues were determined by liquid chromatography in albumen and yolk. The sensitivity of the whole procedure was 2 ng/g. The drug was excreted preferentially into the yolk (about 57% of the total) and the elimination period lasted for 4-6 days after treatment.

 

[tofupup]

I guess i am just wondering if this is truly the best tx for histamoniasis b/c the megadose of metronidazole is doing nothing. He is even worse today than ever before and might be dead before tomorrow. Yes, i went to vet twice and she told me to continue the megadose and that she knows nothing about dimetrizole since it is not avail in the US. Do people in Aus use this over metronidazole b/c they know it is more effective? BTW a freind in australia called her vet and was told that the dosage is 50 mg/kg . She has to call him back still today to ask if it is truly preferred ovver metronidazole in severe cases