The control of coccidiosis in poultry farms

Here as complete picture is not clear. No doubt you have told the details.
Following reasons may be,
A: - Mycotoxins may be present in feed & in presence of mycotoxins, coccidiosis may repeat.
B: - no doubt weather is dry, but due to partiallly leakage of nipples in some particular area may cause wet litter where Eimeria can grow rapidly & cause disease.
C: - In coccidiosis there is high requirement of Vit. K, so you shall give ADEK/ Vit K from reliable source along with treatment. You shall also chec that Toltrazuril or Sulfaquinoxaline preperation may be under concentration/ under dose. It may also be that you as aDoctor prescribe & may not be properly administered to a level where it eliminates disease. So all this needsto be carefully managed.
D: - By use one anticoccidial there may develope drug resistance, so it is better to change/ rotate anticoccidial dug use in feed.
E: - It is better to get it checked from laboratory for the type of eimeria, so that it can be treated with proper sensitive drug to avoid reoccurance of disease.
F: - Terminal (After sale of bird) washing/ disinfection should be disinfectant which kill Eimeria oocysts.
Thanks & regards,
Syed maqsood Jaffery

Hi sir

Coccidosis is a very complicated problem in poultry farms as coccidosis not happen as it is but it is accompanied by clostridia and most farmers treat coccidiosis not only treat clostridia. From my point of view, dont use drugs in the first 3 weeks old as sulphanomides you can only amprollium to give the coccidia to make a challenge to give future immunity. If you need more details and photo of coccidosis you can contact with me.

Dr abdelaziz abdelfatah
Avian Poultry Consultant

Considering the fact that your farmers are getting coccidiosis even in dry weather and repeatedly , there are chances of immunosuppression which could be attributed to the presence of mycotoxins, sub clinical I.B.D or CAV.Regular use of chemicals like clopidol can result in development of drug resistant Eimeria.Reducing the stocking density, changing/rotating the feed anticoccidials caan help in this situation.All the affected farms should be disinfected with chemicals like ammonia which kills Eimeria oocyst.Combination or practices and managementss tools is required for control of coccidiosis rather than any single approach.

The same problem was associated with my farms in africa. on field investigation i noticed that, the waterers and feeders were defecated by birds and the oocytes were serve as ready reservoir for infection.secondly use of wheat bran in the feed serve a potential cause to coccidiosis and latter trigger necrotic enteritis.thirdly starvation and manual waterers were the cause for coccidial infection. i approached with rectifying the lacunae and-day1 coccidial vaccination and treating the birds with Amprolium for 6-7-8-days and use of probiotic with live yeast culture in drinking water for 1st week and later in 4th week.and considerable results were obtained in Broilers.
I suggest you to use apple cider vinegar 1TSP\15litres\100birds,,use probiotic in feed ,avoid wheat bran in feed and avoid manual drinkers. secondly while shed cleaning use caustic soda on floor and leave overnight. avoid costly ionophores for treatment and practice good management.

The use of sulphaquinoxiline in water is an outdated practice. You should check in the market some new drugs which are very useful in controlling coccidiosis. Regarding the use of Clopidol in feed I would suggest that you check the dosage being used. Because normally the feed manufacturers are very reluctant to use proper dosage of anti-coccidiostat to save money and the result is that the Emiria gets used to low dosage and is sometime not killed and gets resistant. Dry litter is not a guarantee that cocci will not attack the flock. I have personnelly experience such type of severe attacks in flock reared in completely dry litter.

Dear Doctor,

You have not clarified that your problem is of intestinal coccidiosis or of cecal coccidiosis. Considering the infestation related to any Eimeria species i wish to share the below facts:

Treatment:

1)
Eimeria species cycle is of 7-8 days so while treating the infested flock your drug of choice & line of treatment should be perfect. i.e. if its a intestinal infestation please go for sulfa drug for minimum 7 to 8 days through drinking water along with Soda bicarbonate to avoid kidney damage and if its a cecal cocci then go for Amprolium powder through drinking water for minimum 7 -8 days through drinking water. If you want to save the cost on the treatment then apply the shuttle program for treatment as 2 days-1 day rest-2 days-1 day rest -2 days.This will help you to overcome the problem of Cocci in the same flock.
2)
Apart from that to overcome the problems of secondary bacterial infections please provide the mixture of good quality prebiotics with probiotics for 3 -4 days.

Prevention for next Batch:

1) First check for the coccidiostat using in the feed and change the same.
2) To kill the coccidial spores in & around the poultry shed premises, please try the mixture of caustic soda & Sodium Chloride as for 1000 sq.Ft.Area use 200 Liter of water,500 gm Caustic Soda & 500 gm of Na Cl & keep the floor blocked with this solution for minimum 48 hrs & then drain it. The alkaline medium will help to burst the spores of cocci.

What about differential diagnosis? Please note symptoms of necrotic enteritis are very similar to coccidiosis and are very commonly confused as coccidiosis. Hence the failure of all medication. Don't jump to conculsion every time you see bloody enteritis that it is caused by coccidia. Get the samples to lab to diagnose the disease if it NE then no coccidial medication going to treat the birds but it will increase the mortality.

For NE choice of medication is Neomycin (agriculture grade) but not Neomycin (Pharmaceutical grade), other drugs are also available in market to treat NE.

Regarding one comment about the under dosage of anticoccidial drugs in feed, please note all the commercial feed manufacturers are using correct dose but at most of the occasions they are use more dose than normal.

in some cases of coccidiosis accompany with clostridium so must treatment the coccidiosis and clostridium affter culture from poultry and showed under microscope
and give some natural plants

All most all pioneer company manufacturing herbal products (Ayurvedic System) have till now failed to produce effective products to control protozoa-Eimeria species (All seven species from genus Eimeria).
Effective farm management, such as well maintained, drip-free water lines, minimizes the level of infective oocysts in the litter, as desiccation significantly reduces sporulation. Litter treatment with “LIITERON” would be helpful.
Chemotherapy has been the most effective treatment to treat coccidiosis in poultry and live attenuated vaccination is widely used to prevent the coccidiosis disease.

Dear Anjum and all,
Please first you check that it is coccidiosis or enteritis. If coccidiosis then diagnose that it is caecal cocci or Intestinal cocci. If the above things are diagnosed then start a treatment according to the disease.
The factors included are,
Oocyst is always present in litter
Use same coccidiotate for a long time.
Use material which have high viscosity.

In different broiler farms, we used sulfa drugs plus ADEK for 48 hours, the problem was controlled.

Basically, it was enteritis because it is very minute difference between enteritis and intestinal cicci. For caecal and intestine coccci use combination of ionophore and chemical in feed which will be produced positive result. Due to adaptation of these therapies, we will be overcome the problem. Please don’t waste money and time using coccidiostates in drinking water before diagnose.

Cocci a Managemntal problem more and a lot can be written for issue and I agree with Dr A.Ramzee coments better to check in LAB for this .
It is now very easy to control it by vaccination even the vaccince its self is too much expensive but if u have more than 2 Houses then it can be easily controled by vaccination by some more managment techniques , but the condition like what respected Dr is saying like HOT SEASON / dr litter it will be not easy in this condition for vaccince as in vaccinces you need at least 30 % Humidity in the litter .
Differentiall Diagnosis is important for NE and coccidiosis.
Also check your cleaning and disinfection at the end of each broiler cycle and especialy advises to use some disinfectant which have the ability of sprocidal .
just making a white washing with lime is not the complete cleaning .
also check the water ph for the drinking availble as it will also help to provoke the problem .
The other like mixing the Medicines in feed at mill level i think that it is clear that no one will wants to use under dose as it is ethicaly not practiced in the presence of professional person
For the Toltra / Sulfa Please consider the dose and check it .

I appreciate the comments of Dr. Ramzee. Farm management plays great role in control of this disease along with other measures. In Pakistan most of the time it is confused with NE and wrong treatment further disturbs the flock. Proper and differential diagnosis is very important.

As for as NE is concerned its a tedious disease. Try to avoid it. There are many drugs available in markets. In my experience when we shift our birds from starter diet to grower diets there is tremendous stress on birds. Use some suitable antibiotic at the time of feed change is very helpful along with low pH drinking water.

Sometimes Coccidiosis occurs due to drug resistance. There is another aspect that if the birds are immunosuppressed then ionophores will not work and we have to use chemicals in feed to control the disease.
Dr. Munawar Ali

thanks dr.wasil khan sb bikash malla and munawar ali sahib for more useful comments.it further increased my knowledge to treat coccidiosis