Treating coccidia

Status
Not open for further replies.

Staygold

Member
Hello everybody. I just had my bearded dragons fecal tested and she came back positive for coccidia. I've heard there are two different common antibiotics that the vet will prescribe, I remember reading it was recommended not to use one of them ut can not find the post again. Can somebody please remind me which antibiotic I should be asking the vet for when I take her in. Please and thank you for any help.

Another question, how could she have gotten coccidia? I pick her poop up as soon as it seen and I disinfect everything it touched. Should I be bathing her with some kind of a soap when she gets poop on her foot or tail?
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
Hi there,

Most dragons will have some level of parasites in their system, it's not uncommon. Treatment is only really necessary when the parasites are causing negative symptoms. Otherwise, a normal healthy immune system keeps the parasite levels in check.

So, you only treat it if the parasites are actually causing an issue, such as GI distress, mucous in the stools or blood, lack of appetite, lethargy, etc.

Ponazuril and Albon are the common treatments. Albon is the one that is harsher on the system as it is a sulfa drug.

Albon reduces/stops the reproduction of Coccidia but doesn't kill the actual parasite. The body starts to kill them off with the help of Albon preventing them from reproducing.
Ponazuril stops reproduction AND kills the living coccidia in the system. And it is much less likely to cause side effects.

Both are effective treatments, but Ponazuril is preferred, if needed.

-Brandon
 

Staygold

Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":yjjnwv5w said:
Hi there,

Most dragons will have some level of parasites in their system, it's not uncommon. Treatment is only really necessary when the parasites are causing negative symptoms. Otherwise, a normal healthy immune system keeps the parasite levels in check.

So, you only treat it if the parasites are actually causing an issue, such as GI distress, mucous in the stools or blood, lack of appetite, lethargy, etc.

Ponazuril and Albon are the common treatments. Albon is the one that is harsher on the system as it is a sulfa drug.

Albon reduces/stops the reproduction of Coccidia but doesn't kill the actual parasite. The body starts to kill them off with the help of Albon preventing them from reproducing.
Ponazuril stops reproduction AND kills the living coccidia in the system. And it is much less likely to cause side effects.

Both are effective treatments, but Ponazuril is preferred, if needed.

-Brandon
Okay. Thank you.
She has not been eating much , and she has been going up on her hammock to sleep almost all day.. When she is up she is really alert and runs around the house.. In her poop there is a brownish sack in between the poop and the urate. And her poops have been smaller, but of course she hasn't really been eating much. Do you think she needs to be treated? I don't want to give her medicine if she doesn't really need it.
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
I would make sure husbandry is all up to par first, and verify the diet is ok too before moving on to treatment.

If you want, we can go over your setup and other items with you to just rule out anything in the environment or the diet that might be causing the slightly off behavior.

How old is she? Is she shedding at all?

-Brandon
 

Staygold

Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":1m2cgnug said:
I would make sure husbandry is all up to par first, and verify the diet is ok too before moving on to treatment.

If you want, we can go over your setup and other items with you to just rule out anything in the environment or the diet that might be causing the slightly off behavior.

How old is she? Is she shedding at all?

-Brandon

That would be awesome! She is approximately 17 months old and I have had her for almost three of them. Since I have had her she has shed different parts of her body at different times.
She has a reptisun 10.0 ho T5 UVB bulb on top of her screen lid. I took the door off of the opening on top of her cage so she gets unfiltered UVB on her grey rock, which is about 14 inches below the bulb. She gets filtered UVB on her branch which range is between 6 and 8 in below the bulb.

Her temps are taken with a Zoo Med temp gun, Zoo Med digital thermometers and 1 Zoo Med digital thermometer hygrometer. She also has three thermostats. The vivosun thermostat controls the heat mat on the side of her tank to stop it from going above 98. The ink bird heating and cooling thermostat controls her Che and fan. The c h e turns on at night if her temperature gets down to 70 and turns off when her temps get back up to 75. The fan is set to go on at 80 and off at 75 but I have the fan turned off for winter, I basically got that for summertime if needed. The last thermostat is an Exo Terra dimming and pulse proportional that controls one of her her basking bulbs and it is set at 92 with the probe near the bottom of the hot side.
The probe at the very bottom on her cool side reads around 74 degrees. The probe about middle of the tank on her cool side, under the hammock, reads around 80 degrees. The surface temperature of The Rock measures between 90 and 108 degrees. Part of her rock is only under the UVB and part of her Rock gets both, UVB and basking. Her branch surface temperature ranges from 91 to 106 degrees, the higher part with lower temperature of the branch are only under the UVB. The lower part with higher temperature of her branch is under both. Her log, directly under the Basking light reads 97 to 102 degrees, she rarely sits on her log. She normally basks on her Rock or at the highest part of her branch.

Her humidity normally sits around 20 percent at the bottom of the middle of the tank.

As far as her food goes she gets superworms, silkworms, hornworms and wax worms. She doesn't get dubia roaches because they are illegal in Canada. She doesn't get crickets because I can't catch them with the tweezers or if I do catch one it escapes by the time I get it to her ( so until I can figure out some way of teaching her to catch them on her own, these haven't been working) and I have tried Phoenix Worms except I think they are too small because she just won't eat them, I've gotten her to eat maybe three of them other than that they all turned into flies on me. She gets a fresh salad every morning which is limited in variety because so many things are out of season right now. What she has been getting is kale, baby bok choy, and squash regularly. And then sometimes I put in parsley, carrots, cucumber, green cabbage, Frozen blueberries, frozen strawberries, grapes, celery and celery leaves, and this grocery shop I picked up some beats with leaves on them and gave her some of the leaves. But a lot of the time she won't eat her salad. I am not sure if this is because I put her salad in a bowl in her cage and maybe she's not used to not being hand-fed it, or maybe she's just being a picky dragon and doesn't want her veggies.

I can't think of any other information to supply you with. Please let me know if I am wrong on anything and I will fix it right away.

I am not sure what this means but on the fecal exam report they emailed to me, her coccidia counts as 4 +
 

Staygold

Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":32n7n96n said:
I would make sure husbandry is all up to par first, and verify the diet is ok too before moving on to treatment.

If you want, we can go over your setup and other items with you to just rule out anything in the environment or the diet that might be causing the slightly off behavior.

How old is she? Is she shedding at all?

-Brandon
I forgot to post a picture of her cage. Here it is.
109751-948431064.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

No members online now.

Latest resources

Latest profile posts

I miss you so much, Amaris 💔
What is a quick way to warm up a cold beardie? His heating element went out overnight and now he's very cold.
Pearl Girl wrote on moorelori1966's profile.
i feel so sad reading your about me 😢
Clapton is acclimating okay I think. He's quick as lightning so I'm not sure how much I should bring him out of his house yet. He's not at all interested in his salad though. I wonder if I should change what I'm giving him. Least he's eating his crickets.

Things to do:
Buy calcium powder
Material to raise surface for basking spot
Scenery decals for back of tank

Forum statistics

Threads
155,901
Messages
1,255,699
Members
75,967
Latest member
Newbeardiemom09
Top Bottom