Link, please?
Topic of the Week - Coccidiosis
- Thread starter sumi
- Start date
Hmmm…..let me see if this works: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/fecal-testing-for-poultry.78206/
My Very First 6 Chickens
*~* Livin', Lovin', Learnin' *~*
unknown to me, i gave my week old chicks plenty of sod throughout that 6 weeks in the brooder. Worms and grubs were in the mix. They will be 2 yrs old in May. i had no idea I was helping them gain resistance.
I just notice that one of my juvenile chickens has bloody poop, so I am going to give them some toltrazuril (Baycox).
How's it going with the Toltrazuril Kathy?
@casportpony
Did the toltrazuril work for you?
Did the toltrazuril work for you?
Lillith37
Specially interested in chickens
I think I may have lost a chick to coccidiosis recently. That or some other failure to thrive thing. My broody hatched her and she was the only one to survive a cursed clutch of eggs. She lived a couple of weeks but she wasn’t seeming to grow. Sometimes I would see her act sleepy and struggling to keep up, but her poops were always normal. I was doing a preventative dose of amprolium every 4 days but maybe it wasn’t enough. My broody ended up abandoning her and she died overnight. It was very sad.
I'm sorry for your losses, especially the lone chick.
I've had a rough 2023 and early 2024 raising chicks and young pullets.
The coccidiosis symptoms were all there. Physically hunched with neck drawn in, fluffed feathers, eyes barely open, lethargic, not eating, some had blood in feces and others had milky looking watery diarrhea. I sent one pullet out for a necropsy and it WAS coccidiosis.
A chick was examined and diagnosed with anaerobic bacteria as the cause of death. So, I was dealing with two combined problems in all the chicks and pullets.
I threw everything at these birds; Corid, Toltrazuril, SMZ-TMZ, Sulfadimethoxine and Baytril all to no avail.
The remaining pullets/chicks with anaerobic bacteria were prescribed 1ml Metronidazole mixed with Liqui-Tinic 250mg twice a day for 5 days. Also activated charcoal mixed in feed to provide oxygen in the guts since anaerobic bacteria survives without oxygen.
At first the treatment worked and I saw improvement. However, they were just too weak from not eating and were floundering. I decided to cull them.
I've since put fresh sand in all the pens. I'm not getting chicks anymore. I have a breeder friend that's raises chicks up off the soil and will raise them to point of lay and give them to me. Of course I'll compensate her for feed and her time.
At point of lay, the pullets immune system should be strong enough to deter coccidiosis, and anaerobic bacteria infections.
I'm sorry for your losses.
I think of you as one of the experts on medications on BYC, so I really value your testimony. And what this suggests to me is that, not only do the usual meds not work anymore, but they may have reached the point where they are doing more harm than good to the birds given them. Surely it's worth trying a different approach, since whatever it is, the results cannot be worse?
A recent paper on an alternative approach:
Dietary use of Rosmarinus officinalis and Thymus vulgaris as anticoccidial alternatives in poultry, Lahlou et.al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2021.114826
There is a lot of useful information in the paper about the condition and current research on it. For those who can't or don't want to read the whole, here's excerpts from the intro and the conclusions:
"The prevalence of coccidiosis depends fundamentally on the characteristics of Eimeria biology (Blake et al., 2015), but also from innumerable other geographic and climatic factors (Awais et al., 2012; Luu et al., 2013). It is a sophisticated and ubiquitous parasitosis that can result from combinations of different species in any farm (Williams, 1998). Host genotyped (breed), age of birds, and previous exposure history also influence parasite occurrence. Thus, poor management of sanitary conditions, housing, and management systems increase Eimeria occurrence, burden, and disease (Gharekhani et al., 2014). All these factors lead these parasites to develop an ability to survive as oocysts in the environment (Belli et al., 2006), and their propensity to drug resistance poses a significant threat to secure production of poultry derived food products (Chapman et al., 2013; Blake and Tomley, 2014). Anticoccidials, vaccines, and strict management practices (biosecurity) are commonly used as a preventive method against coccidiosis (Fatoba and Adeleke, 2018). However, the misuse of this has led to the development of widespread drug resistance. There is also a risk of potential drug residues accumulation in poultry meat and in the environment that threatens human and animal health (Baynes et al., 2016). Both problems are the main limitations to the use of anticoccidial drugs, and they have triggered investigations on other products that are more effective, less toxic and inexpensive. Instead of drugs, the use of vaccination formulations containing virulent or the attenuated live parasites that are commercially available is more common. However, slower onset of immunity caused by problems of uniformity product application or excessive vaccine reactions, as well as the high cost of development and implementation of the product, could eventually contribute to the failure of vaccination (Barbour et al., 2015). The search for other safe approaches, particularly those that can induce strong responses without significant secondary effects, has focused on natural products derived from medicinal plants. Indeed, ethnoveterinary medicine is of great interest today and is increasingly used in some countries (Martínez and Jim´enez-Escobar, 2017; Suroowan et al., 2017)." .....
"R. officinalis and T. vulgaris are the most widely used plants in the Algerian pharmacopoeia and they are a rich source of phyto-chemicals against coccidiosis. Through the multi-pharmacological activities of their co-products, they can prevent and treat coccidiosis by simultaneously regulating the life cycle of Eimeria sp., host immunity, antioxidant status and intestinal microflora, which has been demonstrated in various experimental and field studies. Their efficacy as feed additives may vary as a result of the variation in their composition due to biological factors (plant species, growing location, and harvest conditions), and manufacturing (extraction/ distillation, stabilization) and storage conditions (light, temperature, oxygen tension and time). Further investigations on the activity and mechanisms of action of plants and their toxicity in birds would confirm the claimed therapeutic activity against coccidiosis. These could help in the research and development of natural preparations that can be used alone or in combination with conventional treatments for coccidiosis in poultry.
Declaration of Competing Interest The authors report no declarations of interest."
Rosemary and thyme are not exotic plants. If you grow them in your garden, you give your chickens the opportunity to self-medicate with them.
Dietary use of Rosmarinus officinalis and Thymus vulgaris as anticoccidial alternatives in poultry, Lahlou et.al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2021.114826
There is a lot of useful information in the paper about the condition and current research on it. For those who can't or don't want to read the whole, here's excerpts from the intro and the conclusions:
"The prevalence of coccidiosis depends fundamentally on the characteristics of Eimeria biology (Blake et al., 2015), but also from innumerable other geographic and climatic factors (Awais et al., 2012; Luu et al., 2013). It is a sophisticated and ubiquitous parasitosis that can result from combinations of different species in any farm (Williams, 1998). Host genotyped (breed), age of birds, and previous exposure history also influence parasite occurrence. Thus, poor management of sanitary conditions, housing, and management systems increase Eimeria occurrence, burden, and disease (Gharekhani et al., 2014). All these factors lead these parasites to develop an ability to survive as oocysts in the environment (Belli et al., 2006), and their propensity to drug resistance poses a significant threat to secure production of poultry derived food products (Chapman et al., 2013; Blake and Tomley, 2014). Anticoccidials, vaccines, and strict management practices (biosecurity) are commonly used as a preventive method against coccidiosis (Fatoba and Adeleke, 2018). However, the misuse of this has led to the development of widespread drug resistance. There is also a risk of potential drug residues accumulation in poultry meat and in the environment that threatens human and animal health (Baynes et al., 2016). Both problems are the main limitations to the use of anticoccidial drugs, and they have triggered investigations on other products that are more effective, less toxic and inexpensive. Instead of drugs, the use of vaccination formulations containing virulent or the attenuated live parasites that are commercially available is more common. However, slower onset of immunity caused by problems of uniformity product application or excessive vaccine reactions, as well as the high cost of development and implementation of the product, could eventually contribute to the failure of vaccination (Barbour et al., 2015). The search for other safe approaches, particularly those that can induce strong responses without significant secondary effects, has focused on natural products derived from medicinal plants. Indeed, ethnoveterinary medicine is of great interest today and is increasingly used in some countries (Martínez and Jim´enez-Escobar, 2017; Suroowan et al., 2017)." .....
"R. officinalis and T. vulgaris are the most widely used plants in the Algerian pharmacopoeia and they are a rich source of phyto-chemicals against coccidiosis. Through the multi-pharmacological activities of their co-products, they can prevent and treat coccidiosis by simultaneously regulating the life cycle of Eimeria sp., host immunity, antioxidant status and intestinal microflora, which has been demonstrated in various experimental and field studies. Their efficacy as feed additives may vary as a result of the variation in their composition due to biological factors (plant species, growing location, and harvest conditions), and manufacturing (extraction/ distillation, stabilization) and storage conditions (light, temperature, oxygen tension and time). Further investigations on the activity and mechanisms of action of plants and their toxicity in birds would confirm the claimed therapeutic activity against coccidiosis. These could help in the research and development of natural preparations that can be used alone or in combination with conventional treatments for coccidiosis in poultry.
Declaration of Competing Interest The authors report no declarations of interest."
Rosemary and thyme are not exotic plants. If you grow them in your garden, you give your chickens the opportunity to self-medicate with them.
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