Doing Fecal Flotation Exams at Home

[PertyGertie]

Sorry. Didn't remember that I asked he same question in another conversation. Old age is setting in.

 

[KsKingBee]

I bought everything on Amazon.

 

[Garden Peas]

I have accumulated all the equipment to do FF's at home.



My problem is I am not finding any worm eggs or cocci, which may be a good thing. Guess I will take a sample to the vet for verification.

It is a fairly short list. There are ways of doing them without a centrifuge, but I wanted to do it just like my vet does so I have one. Also, there are recipes for making your own fecal solution, but again, I bought the same solution she uses off the shelf. Then you will need a microscope with a magnification of at least 80 X. And a book Veterinary Parasitology, reference Manual, or print off the pages you want on line. Small items are the glass slides, glass cover slips, a squirt bottle, a test tube rack, and popsicle sticks.

Totally awesome, @KsKingBee ...

I saw on another thread where you mentioned having started to run fecals at home and was going to ask for a list -- glad to see it's posted here, MOL.

A couple questions:

First, the easy one. Can you give us a ballpark estimate of what this stuff ran to on Amazon?

Second, I would love to do this, but have utterly no clue how to use any of that stuff except for the microscope, and am not sure I would recognize what I saw, even if I got to that stage, which is unlikely. Can you explain (maybe in small chunks even) what steps there are in the process and how to do them?

Ya know, we need like a youtube channel for our pea stuff

 

[kperki]

I know this is an old post but would this microscope work that I have?

AmScope M150C-I 40X-1000X All-Metal Optical Glass Lenses Cordless LED Student Biological Compound Microscope https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AM5XB5O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apip_c8emLlUy2wmai

 

[KsKingBee]

I know this is an old post but would this microscope work that I have?

AmScope M150C-I 40X-1000X All-Metal Optical Glass Lenses Cordless LED Student Biological Compound Microscope https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AM5XB5O/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apip_c8emLlUy2wmai

The one I had was not showing me the cocci, I could see worm eggs fine. One like this will do everything you need for fecals. https://www.amazon.com/AmScope-B120...2213812&sprefix=am+scope+2500,aps,810&sr=8-14

 

[kperki]

Ok thanks I already have the one I put in the link. Ugh I was hoping it would work. I don't really want to buy another one. The bet wants $70 to do test and will take days...

 

[KsKingBee]

Ok thanks I already have the one I put in the link. Ugh I was hoping it would work. I don't really want to buy another one. The bet wants $70 to do test and will take days...

If it takes days then they are not doing it in-house. The whole procedure only takes about 15 minutes. I started to do fecals because it would take a couple of hours to run into town and wait for the results and get back home. She only charges $35 but after having about ten fecals done I figured out that I just spent enough money to buy all of the equipment I needed and I could also save hours of time not having to go to town. The manual I recommend will show you what you need to know to identify the eggs and a lot more. It really is much easier than it looks and once you have done a couple you will get confidence in your work.

 

[PeaFan]

Thanks for bringing this subject back up. I also just ordered a microscope to start looking for things at home first. I read that a 1000x microscope was enough to identify cocci. Also, what was the manual that was recommended? I might be missing it/not seeing. Thanks

 

[KsKingBee]

 

[kperki]

Ok thank you for the info on manual. So the microscope I have at 40x-1000x will work then? I also want to check our horses for worms and space out their worm meds so they don't build up immunity to them.