Fecal Results

[DylansMom]

Well I just got the results back on my $22.00 peacock Fecal!

Not excited about the results, just the fact that I found someone in my state who will test it.

I sampled from 4 pens, 1 pen contained adults only, 2 pens with 2014 hatch juveniles, and the last sample was from Tsunami, my youngest at 10 weeks. The adults were wormed a month ago using the 3 cc of safeguard in the water for 5 days again a week later, the juveniles were all dosed orally because they are easy to catch. Tsunami was dosed orally and then followed up with the safeguard in the water. There was NO evidence of any worms found, there was however Cocci. No big surprise to me there, I know my ground is Cocci rich. None of the birds in these pens are showing any signs of distress, all are eating and drinking, the poops were all well formed and there was no blood visible. I lost no chicks to Cocci this year either.

So glad I used the medicated feed and used the preventative dose of Corid in the water. I do believe this is probably the only reason I have not had coccidiosis losses.

 

[AnimalsRmyLife]

Well I just got the results back on my $22.00 peacock Fecal!

Not excited about the results, just the fact that I found someone in my state who will test it.

I sampled from 4 pens, 1 pen contained adults only, 2 pens with 2014 hatch juveniles, and the last sample was from Tsunami, my youngest at 10 weeks. The adults were wormed a month ago using the 3 cc of safeguard in the water for 5 days again a week later, the juveniles were all dosed orally because they are easy to catch. Tsunami was dosed orally and then followed up with the safeguard in the water. There was NO evidence of any worms found, there was however Cocci. No big surprise to me there, I know my ground is Cocci rich. None of the birds in these pens are showing any signs of distress, all are eating and drinking, the poops were all well formed and there was no blood visible. I lost no chicks to Cocci this year either.

So glad I used the medicated feed and used the preventative dose of Corid in the water. I do believe this is probably the only reason I have not had coccidiosis losses.

Congrats on 0 Coccidiosis losses!!

 

[KsKingBee]

I think the peace of mind that you get from knowing for sure is priceless. Did they say how heavy the Cocci load was or are they familiar enough that they were able to determine? My vet will generally say things like there were so many I couldn't count them, or there were only a few on the slide. Of course I got to do the happy dance when she said that there were NONE!

I learned a couple of things that I could do to make the test more positive and this is really for people that have not collected samples for testing before. I get about a pea sized amount of poo from six to eight different poo piles per pen, that is to make sure that I didn't accidently get a 'clean' sample from the only healthy bird in the pen. Second, and this is from watching the assistant who was helping the vet, make sure that all the samples in the bag are mixed well. I once saw the assistant just dip a sample off the top, so now I massage the baggie making sure that it is all mixed up so that can't happen. Samples are better when collected fresh before going to the vet.

Corid turned out to be ineffective on my Coccidiosis, switching over to Sulfadimethoxine cleared it right up. I also discussed Cocci with Brad Legg and he also used Sulfadimethoxine with good results, he said that it will clear it up within a couple of days but I did a five day treatment.

I am glad you found a place to do fecal exams for you, it is such a great tool for keeping birds healthy! I think that in the future I will have an exam done and only worm IF eggs are present in the poo. Obviously if there are no worm eggs, there are no worms, so worming would not be needed...

 

[casportpony]

Another thing I think that would give more accurate results is to make sure you get both types of poop. For those that don't know, there are two types, cecal and regular. Cecal poops are the huge, slimy, smelly darks ones, regular poops are the lighter ones with white caps.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

@DylansMom , congrats on finding a vet to do them!

-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

I think the peace of mind that you get from knowing for sure is priceless. Did they say how heavy the Cocci load was or are they familiar enough that they were able to determine? My vet will generally say things like there were so many I couldn't count them, or there were only a few on the slide. Of course I got to do the happy dance when she said that there were NONE!

I learned a couple of things that I could do to make the test more positive and this is really for people that have not collected samples for testing before. I get about a pea sized amount of poo from six to eight different poo piles per pen, that is to make sure that I didn't accidently get a 'clean' sample from the only healthy bird in the pen. Second, and this is from watching the assistant who was helping the vet, make sure that all the samples in the bag are mixed well. I once saw the assistant just dip a sample off the top, so now I massage the baggie making sure that it is all mixed up so that can't happen. Samples are better when collected fresh before going to the vet.

Corid turned out to be ineffective on my Coccidiosis, switching over to Sulfadimethoxine cleared it right up. I also discussed Cocci with Brad Legg and he also used Sulfadimethoxine with good results, he said that it will clear it up within a couple of days but I did a five day treatment.

I am glad you found a place to do fecal exams for you, it is such a great tool for keeping birds healthy! I think that in the future I will have an exam done and only worm IF eggs are present in the poo. Obviously if there are no worm eggs, there are no worms, so worming would not be needed...

Another thing I think that would give more accurate results is to make sure you get both types of poop. For those that don't know, there are two types, cecal and regular. Cecal poops are the huge, slimy, smelly darks ones, regular poops are the lighter ones with white caps.

-Kathy

Okay, well I think I covered everything except mixing it together. I took specimens from 4 different pens and tried to get the regular and the black goopy stuff from each, never thought to mix it though. I can drop off a sample anytime, they are sending it out to a 3rd party lab, that actually has a code for Peafowl. I have all the sampled pens on a moderate outbreak dose of corid now and when finished I will sample again and have it retested, see if ours' is corid resistant, but I'm thinking not or we would probably have seen symptoms.

Right?

 

[KsKingBee]

Okay, well I think I covered everything except mixing it together. I took specimens from 4 different pens and tried to get the regular and the black goopy stuff from each, never thought to mix it though. I can drop off a sample anytime, they are sending it out to a 3rd party lab, that actually has a code for Peafowl. I have all the sampled pens on a moderate outbreak dose of corid now and when finished I will sample again and have it retested, see if ours' is corid resistant, but I'm thinking not or we would probably have seen symptoms.

Right?

Not necessarily. I never saw any bloody stools in my pea pens, and only some loose ones when the outbreak was bad. Once I had treated and brought the numbers down I did not see any sign of Cocci but it was still there.by the tests. Come to think of it the only time they were even showing that they were down, (droopy and listless), was when they were wormy.

Did you send individual samples from each pen or mix them altogether?

 

[DylansMom]

Not necessarily. I never saw any bloody stools in my pea pens, and only some loose ones when the outbreak was bad. Once I had treated and brought the numbers down I did not see any sign of Cocci but it was still there.by the tests. Come to think of it the only time they were even showing that they were down, (droopy and listless), was when they were wormy.

Did you send individual samples from each pen or mix them altogether?

I sent them all in the same bag, but neglected to mix the individual pieces of poo together. I am taking my dog back for a teeth cleaning on the 15th, so I will take another baggie in then. Last year we lost 2 chicks to cocci, NO worms, just cocci, so this year we preventatively dosed with corid and had no losses and no birds showing any symptoms. That tends to make me think the corid is doing the trick.

 

[KsKingBee]

I sent them all in the same bag, but neglected to mix the individual pieces of poo together. I am taking my dog back for a teeth cleaning on the 15th, so I will take another baggie in then. Last year we lost 2 chicks to cocci, NO worms, just cocci, so this year we preventatively dosed with corid and had no losses and no birds showing any symptoms. That tends to make me think the corid is doing the trick.

The thing about mixing the poo up is more of an assurance thing to me. I watched the vet mix it the first time I took a sample in, and one of the assistants may have done it another time, but once I saw that the other assistant didn't I made sure that it was mixed after that.

I am thinking that by your and others standards of keeping the chicks on wire for twelve weeks I have been very lucky this year. I didn't loose one chick that survived the first week in the brooders and the only chick that I lost outside was a broody hen raised chick with those nasty round worms. My luck was in the fact that I moved the peachicks out onto the dirt pens/dirt floor coop at six weeks. Yes, I had to deal with Cocci but again I didn't loose any, I hope that I am that lucky next year when I have even better conditions with the new brooder building.

 

[DylansMom]

The thing about mixing the poo up is more of an assurance thing to me. I watched the vet mix it the first time I took a sample in, and one of the assistants may have done it another time, but once I saw that the other assistant didn't I made sure that it was mixed after that.

I am thinking that by your and others standards of keeping the chicks on wire for twelve weeks I have been very lucky this year. I didn't loose one chick that survived the first week in the brooders and the only chick that I lost outside was a broody hen raised chick with those nasty round worms. My luck was in the fact that I moved the peachicks out onto the dirt pens/dirt floor coop at six weeks. Yes, I had to deal with Cocci but again I didn't loose any, I hope that I am that lucky next year when I have even better conditions with the new brooder building.

The 12 weeks is an ideal, and if I could do it, I would. In reality if you are raising more than a batch here and a batch there it can be impractical. If they are growing well 12 week old Peas are pretty darn big, mine go on dirt at 8 weeks, so we are not that different.