Drugs for treating Coccidiosis in Angora Kids
By Dr Mackie Hobson BSc(Agric),BVSc

1. Drugs

Coccidiosis is one of the most important diseases affecting Angora goat kids. Outbreaks can lead to losses but most commonly the chronic form of the disease results in poor growth, production and also lowers their resistance to disease and parasites.

It is well known in previous research that treating lambs with toltrazuril (Baycox 5%), within the first month of life, provides early persistent elimination of the most highly pathogenic Coccidiodis (Eimeria) species. The product has, in fact, proved to be extremely and continually effective in the two months following treatment.

Lambs treated with diclazuril (Vecoxan) showed a drastic reduction in the most pathogenic coccidial species. The obtained data are in accordance with similar previous works performed.

Reference: Efficacy of Toltrazuril 5% Suspension (Baycox®, Bayer) and Diclazuril (Vecoxan®, Janssen-Cilag) in the Control of Eimeria spp. in Lambs: Manuela Diaferia1 (*), Fabrizia Veronesi1, Giulia Morganti1, Lucio Nisoli2, Daniela Piergili Fioretti1

The results of studies by Manuela Diaferia et al on lambs are reflected in the graph below showing the efficacy of the treatments Baycox and Vecoxan :

• Group C is the control where there is zero efficacy (no reduction in the Oocyte count)
• TOLT Group are the lambs treated with toltrazuril (Baycox)
• DICL Group are the lambs treated with diclazuril (Elanco)

Weeks Post Treatment

• Both Baycox and Vecoxan showed very high efficacy after treatment (>99%)
• Baycox’s average efficacy remained extremely high (>90 %) for the whole study period of 9 weeks while the duration of efficacy of Vecoxan reduced sharply after 2 weeks

However……..what is the situation in Angora kids?

Due to feedback from producers about the reported lack of efficacy in Angora kids of Baycox and Vecoxan (which producers had reported to manufactures) I decided to do a field study to see what was actually happening to cocci oocyte counts after treatment.

Thanks to Arnold Van der Merwe (Bayer), Jan Olivier (Elanco), Stephen Wright (Ascendis Animal Health) and Wouter Vorster (Zoetis) for sponsoring the treatments.

Thanks to Francois Theron and his staff of the farm Eenzaamheid for treating and helping sample his kids. Thanks also to the Grootfontein lab for doing the faecal oocyte counts.

Francois Theron and his staff

The kids were born mid-August and were first treated with Baycox in mid-November. They were shorn on the 10^th January and we started the study on the 22^nd January.

Kids were randomly divided into the study groups (35 in each group). They were tagged and weighed.

The study started first with Baycox and with time we added Vecoxan, Maxisulf LA and Deccox.

1. Baycox (Toltrazuril) – off label use.
2. Vecoxan (Dicalzuril)
3. Maxisulf LA
4. Deccox – off label use.
5. Control

BAYCOX Group: The Kids were treated 4 times over the 212 day study (about 7.5 months).

Treated with Baycox 5% on day 0, 40, 124, 179 (The kids were weighed and faecal samples were taken on day 0,26,40,70,105,124,179,212)

• The Baycox treatment in this study had no effect on the Oocyte counts, being higher than the control group for much of the period.

VECOXAN Group

The Kids were treated with Vecoxan three times over a period of 182 days (about 6 months).

Treated on days 40, 124, 179.

• Vecoxan had no effect on the oocyte counts over this period.

With our two main treatment products now apparently having no effect in Angora goat kids we then had the problem of trying to finding an alternative treatment.

Sulfonamides are a group of drugs used for treatment of coccidiosis, amongst other diseases. There are several types with efficacy against coccidian as long as  treatment is continued for at least 4 days to be effective. Injecting a flock of Angora kids on a daily basis for 4 days is not very practical and would be stressful. However, we wanted to look at the impact of using Maxisulf LA as single injections at intervals.

MAXISULF LA (Ascendis)

We gave 3 treatments (5ml) over a 107 day period (3.5 months)

Injection were given on day 105, 124, 179.

• Single injections of Maxisulf LA did not have an impact on oocyte counts.

Running out of treatment options, we looked at using feed additives as another possible way of controlling and treating coccidiosis.

Feed additives that could be considered are:

• Ionophores Lasalocid –(Tauratec as an example) and Monensin (Rumensin 200, Combicox as examples) Salinomisin (Sacox, Salecox, Salinopharm as examples).
• Decoquinate (Deccox)

The kids had all previously been running on lands and were receiving pellets as a supplement so we randomly selected another 30 kids out of the control flock.

DECCOX Decoquinate (Zoetis)

1mg/kg day for a month (33 day period)

• The Deccox had a significant impact on the oocyte count reducing the average count from 6586 to 75 oocytes per gram faeces.

If we look at the weight gain of feeding the 250g/day of treated pellets to the kids over the 33 days.

• The benefit of both the pellets and coccidiosis treatment resulted in an increase of 2.5kg (10%) body weight compared to the control 1.6 kg increase (6 %)

Costs involved as a rough idea of the study (33 day period).

• Treating kids at 1mg/kg and taking wastage into account:

The kids’ weights on average were 27.4kg at the time of treatment with Deccox but treating for the heaviest goat 35kg we would need about 200g/day of the pellets. We fed the kids on average 250g pellets a day.

• The cost of the Deccox would be in the region of R8 per goat + cost of about 8kg pellets fed over the period.(250g x33 days)

Thanks to FJ Feeds for making the Deccox pellets and to SAMGA for sponsoring the pellets.

• For TREATMENT the Deccox was mixed at 1670g per 500kg (roughly 3kg/ton) feed which equates to 200mg/kg pellets.
• This is 2x more concentrated than the 1670g/1000kg (100mg/kg pellets)

We did this in order to feed less pellets and so decrease the cost of pellets required to treat the kids.

If you are looking to get FJ feeds to make the pre-medicated pellets rather than making yourself contact Sean Pringle on 081 534 4145 or Jo Pringle on 079 841 8305.

It must be remembered that treatment of Coccidiosis is just part of the disease as stress and many pre-disposing factors have a major impact.

Eliminating the predisposing causes is vital. For more information on the disease see the SAMGA website https://www.angoras.co.za/page/coccidiosis#29