Cocci prevention in a 6 month old?

[MaddieLynn]

As y'all know, I took Ferdinand to a show on Saturday. Well, today a friend told me that they are having coccidia go around really bad at the high school ag barn (where the show was) and they lost a sheep from it. She says people claim it came from a steer at the show. Now I don't know if this sounds plausible or not (it sounded a little weird to me) but if it IS, what can I do to make sure my guy stays ok? If he isn't sick yet, are we clear? Right now he's on Draxxin for a respiratory infection. Not sure if that affects anything.

[KrisD]

Has he had cocci prevention up until now? What have you used for prevention?

[Alice In TX/MO]

Coccidia is best dealt with by practicing prevention.

Read here:
Different Cocci meds and doses

[Backfourty,MI.]

I agree with Alice & Kris. If he didn't have coccidosis prevention before or after you got him I would start him on it right away. It will not affect his antibiotics. Cocci can & does take them very quickly if it gets a hold.

[LoneStrChic23]

Would depend on his past history..... If one of my 6 month olds were exposed to coccidia, I wouldn't think twice about it. I use prevention from 3 weeks old & repeat every 3 weeks until 4-5 months old so they have a very strong immunity.

If this was a kid who has never been on prevention, I'd likely do a round as a precaution.... I usually use Di-methox, but it's a sulfa antibiotic & I don't know if taking it orally while he's on another antibiotic will cause an adverse reaction or not.... So in that case you may want to try a Corid round, or perhaps a single dose of Baycox...

[MaddieLynn]

I didn't get him till he was 3 or 4 months old so I have no idea. He was hog wild though so I doubt he had it. We have Corid right now. Would that work? How would I get it down him? I gave it to our others out of bottles but that wouldn't work for him.

[LearningLife]

Originally Posted by Backfourty,MI.

I agree with Alice & Kris. If he didn't have coccidosis prevention before or after you got him I would start him on it right away. It will not affect his antibiotics. Cocci can & does take them very quickly if it gets a hold.

It does, indeed, hit quick and hard. I'm still kicking myself over the loss of our doeling. She was 5 months old when we got her, and I asked every possible question EXCEPT, "Has she had her coccidiosis prevention?" We treat all of our kids that are born here, but that one slipped by during a very hectic time, and now my negligence has cost us a very sweet and promising girl. If he hasn't had the preventative, I'd get him on it now. We use Corid as a preventative, and until now, we've never had issues.

[mygoat]

IN a healthy 6 month old, I certainly wouldn't worry. I practice prevention until 'well grown' and then I quit. For me, that's usually about 50lbs live weight. This year was a little early because we were doing dimethox in the milk - and it must've gave the milk a nasty flavor and they wouldn't take their milk when they hit the 50lb dose... The doelings are now 7 months old and the dairy girl is 95lbs so I kinda doubt that she was terribly affected.

Ability to fight off cocci does not depend in prior prevention use. Unless directly exposed to feces that has high cocci content, it's probably not a problem... and even then, he'd have to be exposed to feces contaminated feeders or feed (and want to consume it) to gain a higher load.

If you're worried about it, do a fecal. It's cheaper than doing prevention in a boer kid that big... And not fun because treatment with MOST drugs is for 5 days - toltrazuril (baycox) is the only thing I know of that's a once-and-done treatment.

[KrisD]

If you mix di methox with snow cone syrup they will inhale it! Mine will knock my down to get it so I feed it through the fence.

["SPIKE"]

I use Tennessee Co-op medicated feed 93840. It contains Decoquinate for cocci prevention. Anybody see problems with that preventive method?

SPIKE