# Coccidia Prevention?



## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

If you've never had a problem with Coccidia, do you NEED to do the prevention? Just curious as I had a hard time finding Dimethox 40% this year (found it though)...

???

I just hate treating for no reason (as in not sick)...do they all get Coccidia no matter what?


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

yep you always need to do prevention in my opinion there are other things you can use besides demethox 40


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

The only places that do not need to do prevention are arid and alkaline.
You are in the swelter belt and there is no way to raise an unscarred kid in hot humid conditions.
You have healthy enough stock that they do not succumb to coccidiosis but they are still suffering damage to the gut which prevents them from growing and producing to potential by disallowing uptake of nutrients until they gain immunity with age and then you have a long recovery of the gut tissue if it can be recovered and often it cannot so you have slab sided goats with poor feed conversion. 
It is so so important. 
It is the single most important thing I have ever learned that improved my management.
Lee


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

You are usually pretty safe those first few years with goats, but eventually especially now hot humid Alabama and not dry California, worms and cocci are going to become a consideration. By the time you see symptoms of diarrhea you have ruined the intestines and it takes months to heal. If you don't want to do prevention, if you choose to use herbal wormers, learn to fecal. Then you know what works, what doesn't on your farm. It's what I did, I sat at club, listened to the gals drone on about worming monthly etc...the new bird netting they put over their baby pens to stop the cocci the birds were giving their kids, the pen of wethers they kept, to be used for the transfusions on kids from anemia from cocci....and knew they didn't know what end was up, along with their vet (who said she had goats as a kid to find out it was a lone wether  so I started fecal sampling, pulling blood and finding out what was real and what was fake......for my farm.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Plus it can strike with no sign but a dead kid. I was going to have a matched set of flashy wethers to pull a cart, Jacob and Esau. Now I only have Jacob. Took him for necropsy cause I wanted to know - coccidia. This was a lone Dec kidding, so come spring it was strict prevention.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

swgoats said:


> Plus it can strike with no sign but a dead kid. I was going to have a matched set of flashy wethers to pull a cart, Jacob and Esau. Now I only have Jacob. Took him for necropsy cause I wanted to know - coccidia. This was a lone Dec kidding, so come spring it was strict prevention.


Wow, good to know, Angie.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Mind if I tag on a question? I weight taped my girl at 10 lbs before starting the first round of Corid. Six days later I thought she looked like she had grown so I weight taped her again - 17 lbs!! So should I have taped her each night before drawing the dose? Or is it ok to go with the same dose the whole five days even though it maybe under dosing by the fifth day?


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Not sure what the "right" answer is, but I weigh, then use the same dose for the whole five days. Weighing each day could make one crazy! :crazy


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

I own a doe with cocci scarring (I didn't raise her) and it's all I can do to get weight on her and keep it on her. It is so frustrating to have such a nicely bred animal, you see all the pieces are there, but you just can't get it to come together.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

Angie, I'll bet you taped her wrong the first time.  10 pounds at three weeks is pretty small, 17 pounds would be the more normal weight. And gaining 7 pounds in 6 days is probably not going to happen in a dairy goat kid...at least mine have never put on a pound a day.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Anita Martin said:


> Angie, I'll bet you taped her wrong the first time.  10 pounds at three weeks is pretty small, 17 pounds would be the more normal weight. And gaining 7 pounds in 6 days is probably not going to happen in a dairy goat kid...at least mine have never put on a pound a day.


True.

Angie, why don't you just use a scale and hold them? That's why I do for accuracy. I go to the weight tape when I can't pick them up any longer.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

Yes, Cocci can sneak up on you. The first year I had goats, I did not use anything and they did great, but it was the first year I had goats! The second and third years were fine as well. Then I started needing something. This year is my fifth kidding season. Wow, different. When one of my does was deathly sick, I let things lapse on my two January doelings. I have NEVER had to do prevention on January kids before, but was this year to head it off in case, because the weather was funky. They always grow off great and never have a problem. So I let myself forget about it while tending to my sick goat which was like a 24 hr job for a while. They had a mild outbreak exactly 3 weeks later. Thankfully it was mild and I caught it fast (and gave antiinflammatory, used slippery elm and cinnamon, you want antiinflammatory to prevent damage in an outbreak) and they did not get very sick and are growing still (10 weeks, 45 and 42 lbs ). But my point is, things change and they can change significantly one year to the next. So be on your toes. My kids are growing great this year! I have one nubian buckling that is 5 weeks old tomorrow, was about 5.5 lbs at birth and is 30 lbs already! His half brother is a week older and has grown almost as fast. It's always wonderful to watch kids just thrive. They won't do that with cocci. And I bet, even if you goats weren't symptomatic, they would have grown faster on prevention.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

I did tape my doeling right the first time. I repeated it a few times cause I was disappointed. She was 7 lbs when I got her (triplet), so when I saw she was 10 lbs two weeks later I was disappointed thinking I wasn't going to hit 10 lbs per month weight gain like Vicki preaches. Then last night she really looked alot bigger/broader, so I taped her - 17 And double checked cause that seemed incredible. I think she grew taller first then broader. That's how my human children grow. I've noticed other goats doing that before.


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

I hate to be discouraging Angie but a pound a day even in a full size dairy buck is really not that common.
17 is a common weight for 3 weeks but not a pound a day after only 3 pounds for 2 weeks. 
So that is why it seems you might have mis measured the last time.
The way to tell will be if she gains a pound a day for the next week :biggrin
We use a scale. Tapes are notoriously inaccurate for small kids.


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## Ashley (Oct 25, 2007)

It depends a lot on how they are standing, a little uphill or downhill, standing with their front legs more underneath them or out front, head down or up, coat density and length etc. Hard to get it real exact.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

I don't think she is gaining a pound a day. I think she had a growth spurt. I'm not sure why that seems so incredible I've seen it happen plenty of times with babies of multiple species, but whatever. The reason I retaped her last night was she was *visibly much broader in the chest*. I guess the answer to the question though is you weigh the first day and carry that through 5 days. We'll leave it at that.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

At 6cc per 25 pounds of Corid I do not do exact weights.....if you are 20 pounds you get the whole 6cc, so if you gained 3 or 4 pounds in the 5 day cycle :nooo it's already figured in. I use the weigh tape, consistancy is the key for me, plus standing on a scale hold a baby, if you have breasts exactly how do you see the scale :rofl


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## buckrun (Mar 7, 2008)

We use an old meat scale for exact weights. Once they are too big for that
I have a helper get on the flat scale- yell out the weight to me- I note it and pull up the med. Dose and repeat. Don doesn't have any trouble seeing over his boobs


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## Sondra (Oct 25, 2007)

yeh but there are some of us that have trouble seeing our feet let alone a scale


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## jpmaynard (Jan 28, 2012)

No body I know in my area SE Idaho (high desert) has a prevention program for Coccidia. Is it something we are all missing? How is this different than Clostridial?


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Lol, well, tried the bathroom scale - 20 lbs :/. Of course, we know *that* scale is not to be trusted! And I fed her two pounds of milk before I weighed her... Maybe she gained another pound in another day :twisted. I guess she'll make it another two weeks even if she was underdosed.

Clostridium is bacteria. Coccidia is a microscopic parasite that likes damp conditions. Damages the intestines so goats impacted will be poor doers, often causes scouring.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> plus standing on a scale hold a baby, if you have breasts exactly how do you see the scale :rofl


Digital scale. It beeps, then I step off and can see the weight.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

JP, we don't have freezes, you can imagine the contamination of our soil, pastures, barns with cocci occysites and worm eggs and larve, flies, roaches, ants, pill bugs, scorpions, snakes........

So nope my management down here has nothing at all to do with you. Why I learned to fecal, seems the books are also not written for the parasite loads we have down here! Might want to ask Tracy her kid rearing management she has it down pat! Vicki


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## Island Creek Farm (Jun 16, 2010)

I bet we have doe with coccidia damage then...from a "big" breeder, nice stock, but I heard she let it all go when her husband passed away. I have a 3 year old doe from that breeder who is big, thick and healthy. I got another doe who is also 3 (but born after her husband died), who I simply can't keep weight on...at ALL. She looks so awful 100% of the time, but she's a huge producer for a ff and gave us two very nice doelings her first go round. She really looks like a skeleton.

I'm embarassed to let people see her...plus she's the one with the salty milk in my other thread that we just can't get sorted out. Clean blood work, CAE neg (twice), utd on everything, clean 2 and 10 day milk cultures. Could coccidia damage be the culprit? She's always the first to get pine cone poop. Fecals are coming up clean too...


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

With nearly all our immunity in our intestines...scarred intestines are going to give you hot house flowers, the first one ill, the first one with diarrhea at a show, less kids, less milk...in essence they are ruined and can never live up to expectations. Can they milk and kid and live, sure, just not what it would have been. Missing a whole year while your intestines heal, and do they heal with scar tissue that means that area of the intestine is not absorbing nutrients, yes. Vicki


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## smithurmonds (Jan 20, 2011)

:yeahthat

Amanda, it is the same thing with mine. I can get put a little fat over her ribs by pouring the feed into her, yes, but she never really fleshes out and even with a long dry period I'm always playing catch up. Her genetics keep her here, but what a shame for someone to have ruined her.


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

I don't have muc to add except you all need to listen to Lee and Vicki and the real experienced breeders. I learned about cocci prevention from a 30+years successful Alpine breeder with multiple GCH's, and top nationals placing and spotlight sale animals. Once I started I saw a marked improvement and purchasers and visitors to my farm always comment positively on my healthy, growths kids. Just the cost and effort of not having to "baby" one that does not thrive due to cocci is well worth the regular prevention treatments.


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

Oh I disagree.....most of us in Idaho are on cocci prevention ;-) You will be able to get by for a while because of our high and dry climate, with hard freezing winters.

I personally choose to use Deccox-M -- others use Dimethox or Corrid.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I never remember about Deccox M!!!


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

I like it because I am lazy  The thought of catching each and every one of them to dose for 5 days in a row makes me want to scream, LOL.

Deccox M has worked really well for me -- you just have to be consistent if you use it.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

Tracy, I've been thinking about using the Deccox M, not because my prevention (corid or dimethox) doesn't work, but because it seems so much easier to just add it to the milk every day With kids all sorts of ages, I tend to get mixed up somewhat easily on who is due.  Or the baccox, with a one treatment approach, that is also quite appealing  

As far as asking other breeders in your area about their prevention, if it's like around here, there are a handful of breeders who know to do it, the rest say they have never had a problem, or count on their medicated grain to work, or treat when they have sick kids...


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

Tracy - what dose do you use? I feed milk free choice so I am thinking I would have to use some measurement per gallon into the milk they get fed?


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

1 teaspoon per kid. I don't know that it would stay mixed in cold milk or tend to settle out?


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## Ziggy (Nov 13, 2009)

Thanks..may try when I run out of dimethox...but that probaly won't be until next year as I ordered a case when there was a shortage last year.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Oh I don't go around individually dosing kids, just their wormer. I use Corid in morning bottles. Vicki


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

So if you're using a lambar, do you just hope that each kid gets enough?


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Yes that's it Cindy I just hope 

I keep my kids together by size, so everyone on their first lambar is right at or over 3 weeks, I simply add their weights and feed them their morning lambar with less milk in it than normal so they finish the whole thing. It's then rinsed out and their normal lambar amount is put out. Their is so much competition at the lambar that it is very unlikely anyone is getting anymore than the rest. 

3 kids leave thursday and then one kid flies to their new home...all the rest will be put together except the two larger boys....as we do the youngers 3 week corid and the olders 6 weeks corid I will simply move them for breakfast out of the pen and do two morning lambars. Lambars are simple to make and kids that age will do anything for their milk. So much easier than catching and torturing them with individual doses. Fecals say it works. Vicki


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

Friends who live south of Houston (Texas) are having issues with Deccox M no longer working, so if you do decide to use it, keep a close eye on your kids. I used it with some success one year and no success at all the following year. My coccidia drug of choice these days is Baycox/Toltrazuril, 1 cc per 5.5 lbs, a one-time treatment you can even give to adult goats if you feel they're having stress-related coccidia issues. When we used Corid, it was given the same way Vicki gives it to her kids. My preference has always been for the powdered Corid rather than the liquid . . . it doesn't seem to taste as bad.


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## doublebowgoats (Mar 6, 2008)

Putting the corid in the lambar made me so happy! No chasing. It is almost time for their second round and I am not dreading it like all the previous years.


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## Tracy in Idaho (Oct 26, 2007)

I've also heard of folks using Bovatec - http://probioticsmart.com/farm/goat/calf-pro-medicated.html Says it is out of stock though.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Yeah I haven't shared, Tracy, any of the drugging of milk with Bovatec/lasalocid..Decquoninate and Rumensin....you can purchase all of them via pipevet.com When these groups of kids get done, 2 of the folks I know are fecal sampling, then we can post anything we here. Lee is fecal sampling and using Baycox also. Most who are using things never fecal sample, or like when the forum was using Deccox M a couple of years ago, they didn't start it soon enough, it doesn't treat cocci, you have to start it early. Vicki


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## hsmomof4 (Oct 31, 2008)

We have always used Di-Methox 40% in the past, but this year I decided to give Corid a shot. It was so nice being able to put it in a bottle; mine won't drink a bottle with the Di-Methox in it because it tastes so terrible. For round 2, we went back to the Di-Methox, as one of my doelings would up with coccidia just before she was due for her next round. :/ What really stinks is that I now have most of a gallon jug of Corid that I don't know if I'll use.


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Tracy in Idaho said:


> I've also heard of folks using Bovatec - http://probioticsmart.com/farm/goat/calf-pro-medicated.html Says it is out of stock though.


I was going to post about this product! A friend uses it, puts 1 pump per kid in the lambar when they are little, and I think 2 pumps per kid once they are past 25-30lbs. Her kids look great, but we're in a different climate so I dunno how it would work here in West Texas.....


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Crystal the information simply has to come from more than her goatlings look great. Does she even have cocci to deal with? What numbers on fecal? Is it strictly prevention? Or has she had numbers decrease after it use? It's just way to important to have someone give information without at least proof in their herd of more than they look good. The Deccox M info orginated from a long lived herd in Arkansas, so close enough to home to be believed. Vicki


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## IndyGardenGal (Jun 11, 2009)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> At 6cc per 25 pounds of Corid I do not do exact weights.....if you are 20 pounds you get the whole 6cc, so if you gained 3 or 4 pounds in the 5 day cycle :nooo it's already figured in. I use the weigh tape, consistancy is the key for me, plus standing on a scale hold a baby, if you have breasts exactly how do you see the scale :rofl


I've got those and a big baby belly. I'm lucky to see my toes.


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## MF-Alpines (Mar 29, 2010)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> Yes that's it Cindy I just hope


:lol I can never tell whether you are just toying with me or if you're serious.  Ha! But I get what you're saying (this time).


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

I do have a very sarcastic side, I find funny in everything, takes a lot to rile me. Vicki


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## lonestrchic23 (Jan 7, 2011)

Vicki McGaugh Tx Nubians said:


> Crystal the information simply has to come from more than her goatlings look great. Does she even have cocci to deal with? What numbers on fecal? Is it strictly prevention? Or has she had numbers decrease after it use? It's just way to important to have someone give information without at least proof in their herd of more than they look good. The Deccox M info orginated from a long lived herd in Arkansas, so close enough to home to be believed. Vicki


Oh no, she says it's purely prevention & she starts it when they are 2 days old. She does fecal, and said no way does it TREAT, and you have to start using it very early. Not a clue on her fecal #'s.... It was just chit chat, didn't get into specifics like that....

Besides, our set ups are soo different (and we are not even in the same state) that I can't strictly go on what works for her. I want to try it, but I'll wait until I have some freezer camp boys to experiment on so I can fecal & see what I get and if it doesn't work for me, it's not like I damaged a doeling or future herd sire...... I used Di-methox/Corid last year with very good results, so I'm sticking with what I know works for the 3 doelings I'm raising now.


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## Anita Martin (Dec 26, 2007)

I met a breeder last year with beautiful lamancha kids that uses the bovatec and has been using it for years. Didn't get a chance to ask her about fecals but her kids looked great!


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## tlcnubians (Jan 21, 2011)

Bovatech is lasalocid, an ionophore antibacterial agent closely related to monensin (a/k/a rumensin). Not only are these products coccidiastats, they also help ruminents get more nutrition out of the feed they eat. So excellent growth rates would be expected when you supplement with these medications.


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## NubianSoaps.com (Oct 26, 2007)

Bovatec/lasalocid..Decquoninate and Rumensin
............

Yes that is why I wrote it like this. They all have for a very long time been in goatfeeds, before that sheep and calf feeds. What is new is the putting them into milk in self feeding free choice and lambars. Vicki


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## Golden Delta Alpines (Mar 8, 2012)

I am now starting to do cocci prevention (Corid). Thanks, Crystal, for letting me know the importance of it and all the help you gave me.

Can I give Corid to my adult goats, as prevention, not as treatment? Or would I have to do fecals first?
None of my goats have ever had scours, if that helps. I don't know all of the signs of coccidiosis...


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## Golden Delta Alpines (Mar 8, 2012)

Forgot to mention, I'm starting the Corid on the kids born here, I haven't given it to my adults yet.


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## swgoats (May 21, 2010)

Adults usually have immunity, and if they get an outbreak, they will probably have diarrhea. You would detect it when you fecal, cause you will fecal before you go treating.  Usually you only need prevention for kids.


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