low grade cocci?

[Diamond]

I am glad to hear they are all fat and happy with good feed rations.

But the misinformation from your breeder is irritating me badly

Coccidiosis is often displayed as chronic weight loss and poor coat; usually the stomach will seem rather large and the backbone and tail area of the rabbit poor and bony. In the acute phase, mucoid enteritis will occur followed by absence of stool, bloating, teeth grinding, rabbtit being off its feed and water; then loose foul smelling stools and death within 24 hours of the onset of the loose stools.

A necropsied rabbit with active cocci will have bloating and reddened, dilated blood vessels around the small intestine, and often a yellowish/ greenish cast to the contents of the cecum with an unpleasant odor. usually there are no fat stores left.

Normally, the kits will be affected and start dying about 7 to 10 days after weaning. Adult rabbits can carry the cocci without symptoms and pass it on the the kits.

The treatment for cocci is not fenbendazole (SafeGurard). Also, the breeder's recommendation of fenbendazole therapy is incorrect in both the dosing measurement and frequency. Fenbendazole treats e. cuniculi, giaardia, pinworms, whipworms, and tapeworms but not cocci. It should be given at 20mg/ kg for 3 consecutive days and then repeated in 14 days for another 3 day treatment. The liquid SafeGuard goat wormer is the only way to accurately measure a dose of fenbendazole for small livestock such as rabbits, it comes out at about 0.10 cc per pound (1.0 cc per 10 pound rabbit)

For coccidiosis, two OTC products are available. One is Corid (amprolium) which is not very effective in rabbit coccidiosis, for whatever reason. The other is sulfamethoxazine (Sulmet, Albon) and is highly effective if administered correctly. Sulmet comes in a 1 gallon jug and is labelled for poultry use. The initial dosing needs to be double strength, at about 30cc/ gallon of water, then followed by 15 cc per gallon and administered for 10 to 14 full days of treatment, then repeated in 14 days for another course if you do indeed have an active outbreak of coccidiosis.

 

[caroline]

...sulfamethoxazine (Sulmet, Albon) and is highly effective if administered correctly. Sulmet comes in a 1 gallon jug and is labelled for poultry use. The initial dosing needs to be double strength, at about 30cc/ gallon of water, then followed by 15 cc per gallon and administered for 10 to 14 full days of treatment, then repeated in 14 days for another course if you do indeed have an active outbreak of coccidiosis.

The bottle says not to administer for more than 5 days. Sound like you have experience and for rabbits it needs to be longer?
Could you say something about that please.

 

[Random Rabbit]

Diamond...... By any chance have You had any experience with (brand name) Baycox ?? ( don't have the full name in from of me at the moment). We had a doe that seemed to have on going issues with cocci... and she Really cleaned up after we treated with the Baycox.

Toltrazuril ... there looked it up.

 

[Diamond]

No, I have not used the Baycox. I worked extensively with my vet on the coccidiosis issue, as I was losing 33% of my weanlings to the disease while all the adults appeared very healthy. We used the Rx Albon for the first treatment, which was very time consuming, and followed through with the Sulmet for poultry for subsequent treatments.

I tried Corid first (amprolium) and also treated for other paristic illnesses - e. cuniculi, giarrdia, worms; I kept losing rabbits before involving my vet and doing fecal testing to identify/ confirm the coccidiosis. My veterinarian recommends minimum of 10 day treatment, any less simply develops resistant strains. The cocci are pernicious in the environmnet and encyst into spore-like cells that can lie dormant for prolonged periods of time; hence the need to sanitize with ammonia and retreat rabbits at 14 day intervals.

Because I have a fairly large rabbitry (30 breeding stock) I am still using the Sulmet when weaning kits, and also treating new rabbits with the concentrated Albon as part of the quarantine process. The disease obviously hitchiked into the rabbitry from somewhere else; I do quarantine all arrivals for 30 days, but as I mentioned adults are usually asymptomatic.

So far, at month three, my weanling deaths have gone down to about 5 %, which is much closer to average but I went for years when I never lost a kit once they reached about 3 weeks of age. So, hopefully over time I will get back to my coccidosis- free levels of production.