# Ivermectin dosage with Avio Ekto Endo pills



## dananarama (Sep 25, 2012)

Hello,

I have a question about treating pigeons with ivermectin using pills called 'avio ekto endo' that I got from Jedd's here.

I've read in multiple places that the dosage of ivermectin for pigeons is:

.5-1mg ivermectin / kg bird weight

The directions on the bottle of avio ekto endo say to administer 1 pill per bird.

Each pill contains 0.1mg ivermectin and 7.5mg praziquantel.

I've created a spreadsheet here (you have to click the tab at the bottom that says 'ivomec dosing') that shows a table of min/max dose, in number of pills, per body weight, based on the dosage of .5-1mg / kg.

Am I missing something? How could giving one pill to a 400g bird possibly be effective? That would be a dose of .25mg / kg, which is half the minimum recommended dose.

But then I have to consider: the only pigeon dosage I can find for praziquantel (tapeworm medicine) is 6mg per bird. I could find no dosage per body weight. Assuming this is correct, if I use the spreadsheet above to calculate the dosage for a 300g bird, I would use 1.5-3 pills for that bird. That would mean the bird would get 11.25-22.5mg of Praziquantel. I can't find any info about the safety margin of Praziquantel, but giving 187-375% of the recommended dose seems like a bad idea.

Does anyone have info on the dosage of Praziquantel per body weight? The maximum safe dose per body weight?

Is there something wrong with the calculations in my table, or should I just get a different form of ivermectin and save these pills for when I want to treat for tapeworm?

Thanks for any input,


Dan



Edit: Excellent site for drug dosages in animals here. I had to look up that PO means 'per oral' - given via the mouth.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

Yes, that proportion of ivermec to praziquantel is a bit off. I wouldn't feel very comfortable with giving such a high dose of praziquantel and low dosage of ivermectin.

Dosage for Praziquantel is 30mg/kg maximum. The tablets I use personally dose praziquantel at 8mg/kg and it works very well at that lower dose.

According to Pidgey, who keeps an Avian formulary on hand, the lowest dosage for Ivermectin is 0.2 mg/kg PO and highest dosage is what you found, 0.5-1mg/kg PO



> Is there something wrong with the calculations in my table, or should I just get a different form of ivermectin and save these pills for when I want to treat for tapeworm?


Yes, It looks like it would be ok for, say, tape worms and external parasites. But used frequently it would cause resistance to ivermectin, I think. For a one off treatment of tapeworms/mites it would be ok.


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

Dan...I think you are over thinking this. 
If you were to use 10% liquid ivermectin, the dose would be .5-0.1 cc's down the throat. This would be the dose for a 400 gm pigeon. The higher dose , 0.1 cc would be for a roundworm infection.
The Praziquantel dose is 6mg per 400 gm pigeon so the dose in the pill form is a bit high but still safe. The pills you have are the equivalent of moxidectin plus. I use both forms and have not had a problem following the recommended doses on the packaging.

Here's from Colin Walker's recommended dosing instructions.


Wormers

Ivermectin (Ivomec, Eqvalen): Broad spectrum wormer. Effective against Ascarids (roundworms), Capillaria (hairworms), and stomach wall worms. Some resistance developing.

Dose : 500 -1000 ug per bird. Can be dosed in the drinking water, but the efficacy of this method is debatable. The surest way is to treat the pigeons individually. 1-2 drops by mouth of Ivomec is the correct dose. The higher dosage is needed to treat roundworms and, for some reason, even this is occasionally ineffective. New generation avermectins such as Moxidectin may be more effective.

Fenbendazole (Panacur): Broad spectrum; effective against roundworms, hairworms and stomach wall worms. Has a narrow range of safety and can easily cause feather abnormalities if birds receive too much. Avoid using.

Dose : 5 mg per pigeon per day for 3 days.

Levamisole (Tramisol, Levasol, Ripercol): Good against roundworms, but usually fails when used to treat capillaria (thread) worms or stomach wall worms.

Dose : 1 to 1.5 grams per gallon for 1-2 days. NOTE: This dosage often causes some pigeons to vomit. This drug is an immune stimulant even at lower dosages.

Piperazine : Effective against roundworms only, and only 60-80% effective here.

Dose : 15 mg per bird (300 mg per gallon) for 2 days. It is best to avoid using piperazine.

Praziquantel (Droncit): Excellent against tapeworms and flukes.

Dose : 6 mg per pigeon once (1/4 of a cat-size Droncit tablet).

Pyrantel Pamoate : Excellent against roundworms.

Dose : 1-2 mg per pigeon – 75 mg per gallon for 1-2 days. Repeat in 3 weeks.


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## dananarama (Sep 25, 2012)

Thanks for the quick reply. What is the most user-friendly form of ivermectin that is readily available? I'd like to get something tonight at Tractor Supply Co, if possible, so something common would be good.


Point taken about the ivermectin immunity. I've read to alternate between ivermectin and pyrantel to avoid problems with this. Does that sound right? I already bought Mediworm pills from Jedd's (here) to do that.

Thanks again.


Wrote this before I saw your reply, Charis. Thank you, too.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

Charis said:


> Ivermectin (Ivomec, Eqvalen): Broad spectrum wormer. Effective against Ascarids (roundworms), Capillaria (hairworms), and stomach wall worms. Some resistance developing.
> 
> Dose : 500 -1000 ug per bird.


Hey thanks for posting that Charis.

I just did a conversion ug to mg, and this dose converted to mg is 0.5mg-1mg (per bird?). 

The tablets have 0.1 mg ivermectin per tablet, so that an undose of ivermectin of 5x- 10X if its per bird. But if its meant to be per kg, the underose would be about half I think? Like Dan mentioned.

Thats why i am bit uncomfortable with it. 10X underdose is a lot.

One thing I've noticed around this forum is that sometimes dosages meant to be `per kg' are quoted as `per bird'. The Avian formulary quotes the dose of ivermec as 0.5mg-1mg `per kg'. I wonder if somewhere someone just put `per bird' instead? Like that pigeoncote site did when they translated the formulary incorrectly.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

dananarama said:


> Edit: Excellent site for drug dosages in animals here. I had to look up that PO means 'per oral' - given via the mouth.


Thats the formulary I use to too. Its originally from the University of Minnesota here:

http://www.ahc.umn.edu/rar/umnuser/formulary.html#Praziquantel

Its been copied to other websites, but there is one in particular, on a website called `pigeoncote' where they changed all the doses from `per kg' to `per bird' . I noticed some members here (Not Charis) quote the `per bird' dosages, when they are meant to be per kg.

PS. They didn't state the dose for ivermec in birds there though.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

PD. Dan, Does your pigeon weigh exactly 400 grams, do you know? Do you have any young birds that weight closer to 250 grams- this could be useful for them?


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## dananarama (Sep 25, 2012)

There are 16 of them. This is my 2nd attempt at starting a loft. I started with 9 back in September and had crappy luck, mentioned in other threads, that left me with 2. But those two are very pretty, have neat personalities, and the girl is sitting on two eggs right now. Anyway, as I mentioned in another thread, I want to make sure these 16 birds are disease and parasite-free before they can go in with Puff and Rooty. 

I know what a 192g bird feels like (a grow-up looking baby) and there's only one like that in this bunch. The rest aren't nearly as big as the biggest mostly-white homer I had before, but I have no idea what he weighed anyway. I'll weigh them and record it before I do ivermectin, which will now have to be next week.

Here are pics of everybody:
link
link
link

Thanks again for all the info.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

Thanks for the pics Dan, I really love seeing what people's birds look like. They are beautiful

So, just wondering, are these birds going to be allowed to come and go from a loft, like they are in the pictures? Or will they be locked up during quarantine?


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## dananarama (Sep 25, 2012)

The 16 will have to be cooped up for 6 months or until they breed, whichever comes first. And it's winter, so it will almost certainly be 6 months. I'm told that even then they may or may not return home when I let them out. I am confident that is the case after five of the first nine never came back. When they had not been let out yet at their original home. After they had been here a month. With one pair sitting on an egg in a nest. I feel like I can trust Puff and Rooty to stick around, but I want to keep them in the loft until they've got these eggs hatched and weaned, should everything work out with that.


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## Bella_F (Nov 29, 2008)

Sorry you lost some of the first lot I have been told that a month isn't long enough to reset the homing instinct too, and that its closer to a year or more (and rarely a sure thing). But like you, I have birds I know are happy here, and have been let out and returned for their shift to sit on the eggs.

Did any of yours have nests or a mate in previous locations, that you know of? I have a sense that if they were taken away from their mate and eggs, the instinct to return is more pressing.


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