Doing Fecal Floats at Home

[shadow rabbit10]

Does this work for chickens as well, or just Peafowl? And what exactly does it test for? This looks really interesting.

 

[Dany12]

It's not only KsKing Bee .... bur DOCTOR KsKingBee !

 

[KsKingBee]

And the cat, the ducks, the guineas, the chickens, the wild turkeys that come through...

 

[Argus]

Hmm, a new way to spend money "for the good of the birds?" Usually this time of year I decide I need a "better" incubator. A microscope sounds much more believable!

 

[paccmanranch]

X10! Last night's viewing session was not ideal - still trying to figure out the digital camera. I did floats of a sample of frothy cecal poo, a "normal" poop with a glob of "intestine" in it, and one from a recovering goose (clean!!, not shown). Here are 2 photos I took - still working on exposure and focus with the digital camera. Terrible image! I think this is a worm egg. From the shape, I'd guess a round worm (Ascaris) or a cecal worm (Heterakis). Note newbie error - not showing a scale and expressing size in micrometers (µm). This would really help in identification. I will do so next session and show how. This image was worse, so I had to process it (using the free program Irfan view). I think this is Eimaria (coccidia) because of the double membrane, and the contents look like ground glass. The magnification is [10x ocular x 43x objective x2 digital camera) 860x (previous photo was 10 x 10 x 2 = 200x) If I had the good sense to measure it, I could use Kathy's chart to figure out which type of coccidia. I'm guessing E. tenella. KSKingBee - does your camera do better than this? Mine is 2MP. I think yours is 5MP I also saw these UFOs. No idea. I think they are too large to be pollen. Every time I post an image, BYC asks me to affirm that [COLOR=333333]I am not uploading any copyrighted or offensive material.[/COLOR] These are pretty offensive! Ha ha!

First picture looks more like a strongyle type egg if it is an egg - the magnification that you mentioned makes theses eggs small compared to strongyles type - the 2nd picture looks like an ascarid more than any coccidia but again - the magnification is throwing me off - you can usually see most parasites with 100x mag - 10x ocular plus 10x objective - the coccidia will be very small at 100x and the ascarids will be prominent. the last picture is pollen, you will see different types of UFOs depending on type of year and what your birds are eating. Disclaimer: I'm a vet so I make a living looking at poop (among other things

 

[Leihamarie]

Well, I ran my first few fecals and I'm addicted, LOL!!! I'm trying all the different methods (ie: Direct Smear, McMaster, float by centrifuge) and so far McMaster has been the winner but that's mainly because my grid reticle won't be here for about another week. Oh! Tomorrow I'm also gonna try a fecal gram stain, cause... why not?!?

I have to figure out the 14mp camera on the microscope and I'll contribute to the image gallery. I'm still a newbie at differentiating between parisite eggs and everything else, hahaha. I did a McMaster coccidia (or... what I thought was coccidia) count on one of my Pullets tonight and according to the formula for EPG, she's got 7500 coccidia EPG. I'm pretty sure she'd be dead if that were the case since anything over 1000 EPG is a severe infection, requiring immediate treatment. I'm sure I'll get better with practice. The centrifuge/ meniscus float is still eluding me for some reason.

So... that's how I've spent my Friday night Totally normal, right???

 

[casportpony]

I thought this was a good video:

 

[Leihamarie]

What does EPG mean?
What are magnifications of pics?

Epg means eggs per gram of feces. It's what determines the parasite load and when to treat.

The magnification on the smaller pictures is 100x and the larger is 400x

 

[Leihamarie]

Here's another great reason to do fecals at home. I did 12 fecals yesterday on both regular & cecal eliminations and found that one of my 3 year old hens has coccidiosis. It's not e. tenella so there was no bloody stool. Poor baby has had watery eliminations for nearly a year that the vet attributed to a reproductive issue. The vet ran a fecal over 6 months ago and either it wasn't significant then or they somehow missed it.

Each fecal is $58 at the vet. It would have cost nearly $700 to run all the fecals and at home I can run them all again in a couple weeks to confirm the effectiveness of fenbendazole (and amprolium for my cocci hen).

My equipment cost has WELLLLLLL paid for itself!

Several coccidia at 400x

eight coccidia eggs at 100x

Plant debris with 3 roundworm eggs next to it at 100x. 2 look like possibly cecal worms. The other is a smaller roundworm.

Doing fecals at home is quite addictive, lol! I have a pretty intense headache from staring into a microscope for so long and have to take a break for a while now, hahaha!

 

[Leihamarie]

Wow!

Your vet charges almost triple what mine does.


Great photos.

Yeah, it's a little frustrating. The exam alone is $68 and is required to run a fecal if the bird hasn't already been seen in the last year. They're "exotic" vets that see $5000 parrots, among other exotic pets. The benefit is that they really know birds and the main vet actually has chickens himself. They're the only vets that I'd trust with my flock, and they happen to be a few miles from my house, but I rarely walk out of there for under $400. Hence my enthusiasm for quality at-home diagnostic and medical care for my ladies.