# Should you always treat for coccidia?



## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

The female sitting the egg on my bed has mild coccidia, her droppings have some light green in them. She is showing no other signs of illness and seems to be sitting the egg quite happily. The thing is, I remember reading somewhere that it is not always necessary to treat coccidia, that it may be better with mild cases to let the natural immune system take care of it. Intervention with drugs may undermine the effectiveness of the immune system, and I try to use drugs as little as possible anyway. I am a little concerned that she has not laid a second egg yet, but this may be due to my attempts to move the nest and she is holding back. What do others think? do you think I should allow coccidia to be dealt with by the natural immune system rather than using drugs, or because she is sitting eggs and presumably has another on the way it is safer to us Diclazuril and treat the coccidia?


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

You can't tell cocci from just looking, a fecal test can show you if she does. Hens laying eggs can have off large volume droppings too., or there are other Protozoa that can be there that you need to treat for. So really without a fecal your just guessing, so the choice is your to treat her, but she may not have that, or something else all together.


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

Those droppings alone won't tell you anything. Like SW said, needs sample tested. 

Pigeons don't frequently develop the actual illness of Coccidiosis as a primary condition, it is more opportunistic when the immunity is weakened.

This is what to look for for Coccidiosis

http://www.rspca.org.uk/ImageLocator/LocateAsset?asset=document&assetId=1232733053217&mode=prd


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

Ok let me rephrase the question a little. If the pigeon is not showing any other symptoms of illness, would you still seek to treat her? Her own immune system may take care of the problem quite adequately, and I may not be helping by using drugs all the time.

I am considering sending a test to a company I have found locally that does this, but I cannot afford to send £7 tests every time I see a bit of green in the droppings, especially when all the cases so far that I have treated have been put right by a dose of Diclazuril.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I think you made a mistake with the document you posted. But the other symptoms of coccidia are know to me and sort of emphasize my question. If the other symptoms are not present, such as lethargy etc, is it necessary to treat? Perhaps wait to see if it develops and then treat if necessary?


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

I would treat even if the bird was asympomatic, I would not wait to get symptoms. IMO but that is if I'm sure the bird has it from a fecal test.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

Thank you for your opinion. That is all I wanted to know.

Actually, after looking at the test page again, I have just realised how it works. You do not get a diagnosis for your £7, you just get a yes or no for that particular test. That means if you are not sure what you are dealing with, you must ask for a wide range of tests and hope you get a yes on one of them. Each test costing around £7, this would mean a full batch of tests would cost between £42 to perhaps a hundred or more!! plus the cost of a testing kit for each test at £4 each. Wow these tests are expensive!


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## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

Yes they can be, maybe there is a rescue organization that can help with that, or have ideas, personally I would go through a vet, see if you can get medical insurance for pets, and call them pets. a vet that works with poultry may have lab contacts that they can recommend, or send off for you, shop around. If I were you I would check the whole of all your birds, a flock check, taking samples from all of them but send one sample, check for a few things most common, if something turns up, treat all the birds, then after that keep things really clean, as that is how most of these things are picked up, in the droppings.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I will contact the guy who runs the charity I work for, he seems to have a friendly vet who he gets a lot of help from. He does pretty much the same as me, keeping a lot of the sick pigeons at his house. We are both hoping that the opening of the aviary will lead to us just having personal pet pigeons at home. Even if occasionally you are fond of a particular pigeon and they end up becoming part of you home flock, that is much better than the current situation where there is a constant flow of pigeons through both our flats. One pigeon in particular I am having a great deal of trouble working out what is wrong. She is a fledgeling from this year, but I found her in the street without the strength to take off and get away from me. I thought she was a goner, but I took her home and treated her for coccidia and gave her 7 days Enroflox at the same time. She got over the coccidia but did not recover her condition, and a few days later I had to treat her for coccidia again, this time with a higher dose. She seems ok now, she flys around the room and grooms and eats, but the others seem to pick on her for no reason. Its like they know there is something wrong with her. She never seems to look healthy and her skin looks a sort of dark purple colour rather than pink. She comes to me a lot for protection from the others and has even landed on my shoulder is unusual for a feral. Really I need to send of for a full spectrum of tests to try and find out what is wrong. I am hoping with time that she will regain condition. It could just be that she is a timid soul and is therefore a target for bullies. I worry about the shortage of food that is going on in London for pigeon as the councils shut down and threaten more and more of the old feeding areas for the pigeons. They are forced to eat a weak diet and I would therefore not be surprised if this bird has problems with its body caused by the diet its mother was forced to feed it why looking after it. I hope she does get better as I find her sweet, and because she has had a hard time and shows no sign of wanting to leave, I would be quite happy for her to join my little flock.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

I have just realised that it is difficult to dose a pigeon that is feeding its chicks, although it could be argued that the chicks need a dose of Diclazuril as well if the parents are suspected of having coccidia? If you werel to follow this route I assume the parent will have to be redosed at night so that she does not feed the dose to the chicks?


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

BHenderson said:


> I think you made a mistake with the document you posted. But the other symptoms of coccidia are know to me and sort of emphasize my question. If the other symptoms are not present, such as lethargy etc, is it necessary to treat? Perhaps wait to see if it develops and then treat if necessary?


I think you are right 

My copy/paste went a bit wrong. 

http://www.medicanimal.com/viewarti...R-BIRDS-PIGEONS,MA19655/~category_id=MA_BIRDS


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

A vet who deals with birds can often just do the tests on a poop sample,or take a throat swab, and check for the common parasites there and then. 

Retford Poultry will analyse droppings/swabs and send or email a diagnosis sheet for potentially harmful bacteria, and overgrowth of cocci, fungi, and more, plus the recommendations for treatment (like, what antibiotics a bacterial growth is susceptible to). They can also supply the correct medicines, prescribed by their own vet. They charge separately for certain more complex tests such as Salmonella, if that is specifically ordered.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

The pdf that I saw for Redford seemed to imply that you had to order a separate test for each suspected bacteria or problem?


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## John_D (Jan 24, 2002)

Well, I just know the results we get back, which cover more than one potential problem. We rarely need a test for something specific - we send samples to try to determine what problem there may be, rather than guess when there may be more than one possibility.


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## BHenderson (Sep 8, 2011)

So they do do a general test to determine what the problem is? That was not made clear from the pdf I saw. What do they charge for a single diagnostic? And what do you order on the form when you are asking for that?


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