Microscope for fecal testing question

[Minelson]

I have been thinking about doing fecals at home. My brother has a very old microscope that I can use. It has a light. It says 10X, 30X, 50X Zoom 100X to 750X....Does anybody know if this will work?

[elgordo]

I too am looking for an (inexpensive) microscope to do the same thing. Yours sounds like it'll be perfect - the price sure is right!
Do you know what to do and how to prepare the slides etc?

[Spinner]

I bought a microscope for that purpose. The first thing I learned is that the low numbers are where you get the best vision. I can see more on the 10x setting than I can on the 750 setting. A cheap microscope will work great for fecals so don't waste money on an expensive one. I got mine online at Toys R Us for $12.00 + shipping, a total of around $17

There are several sites that give instructions for doing fecal counts. Here's a couple I found with a quick search:

http://fiascofarm.com/goats/fecals.htm
http://www.boergoats.com/clean/articleads.php?art=212

I found a Q&A that says to make your own solution juse tepid water and stir in salt (not idoized) until it will hold no more, you can save it from fecal to fecal or make it fresh every time.

Different sites will give different instructions. Try different methods until you find the one you like that gives you the most accurate results.

[troy n sarah tx]

Not that I have ever done animal fecals, however, I have taken tons of biology and I can tell you that bacteria can be seen well under a 100x oil, so anything you are looking for should be seen with that microscope. For parasits we used 10x or 40x, only chaning to 100x oil to look at their internal structures.

By the way, they say it takes awhile to tell the difference between corn and parasit eggs, so good luck!
Hope this helps,
Sarah

[fishhead]

Are there websites that have good photos of the different eggs?

[BethW]

I've considered getting a used Intel Play microscope off eBay. It's for kids, but it has the necessary magnification, and you can connect it to your computer by USB to upload/share the images. I was thinking it might be helpful as a newbie to be able to share exactly what I'm looking at to get confirmation that I was identifying eggs properly.