Rumensin vs. Decoquinate by Karin Christensen

This post was on GoatBiology (yahoo group) as a response to the question about the differences between Rumensin and Decoquinate. The post is dated Thu May 28, 2009. Karen Christensen is an amazing resource on the internet when it comes to goats. Her website can be found here.

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Rumensin, decoquinate and amprolium all disrupt the life cycle at some stage or another. They are considered coccidiastats. Sulfa drugs are considered coccidiocides as well as bacteriocides, killing the cells outright. Although monensin probably also kills the cells.

Rumensin trade name for monensin is an ionophore antibiotic. It will kill protozoans like coccidia including the protozoa in the rumen. It will also kill gram positive bacteria, including those in the rumen. It is used not only as an anti-coccidial but to reduce problems in the rumen from feeding high concentrate diets because it kills the type of bacteria that produce lactic acid. It is considered to enhance growth, but mainly it helps put fat on the ruminant since more propionate is produced from the concentrates while reducing the problem of rumen acidosis. It works by inhibiting the movement of ions across the membrane of bacteria or protozoa.

Decoquinate (Deccox)
Acts on the sporozoite stage so it can't continue to develop in the intestinal cell. Disrupts electron transport system in the mitochondria. Acts on the early stages of the life cycle

Amprolium (brand name Corid) is a vitamin B1 (thiamine) analog. The structure of the amprolium molecule is very similar to thiamine. The coccidia need thiamine to grow especially in stages where they are in high levels of reproduction. If they take in the amprolium instead of thiamine (amprolium competes with thiamine) then the cells cannot grow.

Sulfadimethoxine, brand name Albon.
Sulfa drugs block essential biomolecular pathways in the cells of protozoans and bacteria. Kills the coccidia in most of the stages by interfering with molecular pathways.

That's kind of brief, but I didn't have much time to put this together today.

Karin

My notes on Coccidia

Here is some of the research that I have found helpful while trying to treat Buddy for Coccidia.

Here is a page from Karin Christensen's Biology of the Goat site. It explains the life cycle of coccidia. I respect Karin's wisdom and knowledge about goats. She has always answered my questions in a kind and courteous manner. She has never talked down to me when I've had a question, in fact she has often asked questions so that she has more facts in order to answer questions better. She can be found on Biology of the Goat, NubianTalk, and GoatBiology. She is sensible and uses scientific papers and research to learn and teach about goats.

National Pygmy Goat Association also has an excellent article on the stages of development of coccidia and the treatment of coccidiosis. They also have a treatment dosage using Sulfamethazine sold as a poultry prep.

Corid is a thiamine inhibitor, which means that it will stop the organism from being able to use thiamine.

This is from the Corid site
"How CORID works:
Structurally, CORID mimics thiamin (Vitamin B1) which is required by coccidia for normal growth and reproduction. When coccidia ingest CORID, they experience thiamin deficiency and starve from malnutrition. CORID has been experimentally administered at many times the recommended dosage and duration with no signs of toxicity."

After talking to Hubby (Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry with a minor in BioChemistry) he said that the cells in the goat would absorb the Corid, preventing them from absorbing the thiamine as well. If Buddy becomes thiamine defiecient, he has the chance of having polioencepholamalaica.

Other drugs for treatment of coccidia include Albon 12.5% solution, Di-Methox soluble powder, Di-Methox 12.5% solution, Sulment oblet, and Sulmet 12.5% solution. Information for those drugs and dosages are found here at the Maryland Small Ruminant Page.

Treatment and Di-Methox instructions can be found here at the Onion Creek Ranch site. They also state, "CoRid is no longer recommended by many professionals because (a) some strains of coccidia have become resistant to it, and (b) CoRid is a thiamine (Vitamin B 1) inhibitor. The importance of thiamine in keeping goats healthy is difficult to overstate."

Hoegger Goat Supply also has some information about coccidia and dosing with Di-Methox, 12.5% solution. They say, "We never had much success using Co-Rid. The huge doses necessary for treating goats (10 times the cattle dose) created a vitamin B1 (thiamin) deficiency that resulted in the goat getting polio. In other words, "the cure was worse than the disease."

Goat-Link also has an article on Coccidosis in goats. They also warn against using Corid. The page states, "CoRid is a thiamine (Vitamin B 1) inhibitor. Thiamine in the goat's system is essential for keeping the goat in good health, using Corid will undo anything you are attempting to do in getting your goat healthy!"

Baycox (toltrazuril) was also suggested as a a treatment for coccidia, although that is not available in the US at this time (I couldn't find it.) Here is an old post from NubianTalk (yahoo group):
"Toltrazuri (brand name is Baycox) is a fantastic treatment/prevention. It is manufactured for poultry, pigs and calves. It can be ordered via the internet from Australia. I used it last year on a several kids. As soon as they would start to get loose (3-4 weeks old) I would treat. It is a single treatment and within 2 days the manure was back to normal and the kids never missed a beat.

Be advised this is an extra-label use for this drug as it is listed for cattle, pigs and poultry. It is listed in "Goat Medicine" by Smith and Sherman for use as a single dose treatment at 20mg\kg body weight orally or prevention at the same dose once every 3-4 weeks. Below is an excerpt.

"A new coccidiacidal agent used in poultry, toltrazuril, has been evaluated in goats and a single oral dose of 20mg/kg produced rapid, significant reduction is oocyst shedding that remained low for 2 to 3 weeks suggesting that all developmental stages of the coccidia present were killed."

I used the formula for pigs that is 50mg/ml and treated per recommended dose. I only used it as a single treatment and never needed to re-treat.

Dan Greene
Greenehaven Nubians
Prosser, WA
www.greenehavenfarms.com"

We also have been giving Probios to support the rumen while we are trying to get rid of the coccidia. I have been told that Probios only supports the small intestine, not the rumen, as this article found in the Journal of Dairy Science suggests. (A paper titled "Direct fed microbial supplementation on ruminal digestion, health, and performance of pre- and postpartum dairy cattle" was published in the Journal of Dairy Science, Vol. 89, No.1, 2006.) Feeding Probios will help support and strengthen his digestive system, but not the rumen specifically.

This page at Fias Co Farm has information and dosages for both Probiotic Rumen inoculates (ProBios) as well as Seleneum-E Gel (like Bo-Se, but in a gel form and available OTC.) (Although we believe that herbs can be helpful at times, we are also grateful to the veterinary and science research fields. More often than not, we use medications when the illness is severe instead of using herbs as is generally suggested by Fias Co Farm.) It was suggested that because of Buddy's symptoms, he might have a Selenium deficiency. Since none of the other goats have any of the same symptoms, Selenium deficiency was ruled out at this time.

Searching through old posts on GoatBiology (a yahoo group found in the sidebar) I ran across one that said, "My theory is that he [a rescued buck] had Coccidia before I got him and it damaged his intestinal track and he wasn't able to absorb the feed he was getting enough to grow as he should. But as he did grow, however slowly, his intestines were also growing and as they did grow - more of the nutrients were able to be absorbed."

If Buddy's only problem is a bad case of coccidia, then perhaps he will just be slower developing since he can't absorb as much nutrition.

We were able to contact a different vet today (Nebo Large Animal Clinic) who let us purchase some Albon pills. He said two pills tonight, and one each day for the next 4 days. Our Di-Methox was ordered last night. We ordered the powder because Hubby has extremely accurate scales and will be able to measure and mix smaller amounts so it doesn't go to waste. If he wasn't so good at chemistry, we would have gotten the solution because it is easier to administer. The Di-Methox should be here by Friday. We will always have this on hand since it is "one of those things you need but can't get quickly." (Karin Christensen)

We are lucky (blessed) this time that we haven't lost Buddy yet. Hopefully he will heal and do his job in our friend's herd. One of the benefits of using Albon or Di-Methox (both Sulfa drugs) is that it "will also treat any bad intestinal bacterial overgrowth as well" as the coccidia. (Karin Christensen)

This post will be added to and changed as I find more articles or information about Coccidia.

Karin Christensen's helpful emails

This post is the emails that Karin and I sent back and forth so she could help us diagnose and figure out what is wrong with Buddy.

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He is being dam raised, he is 8 weeks old tomorrow. Even though we are pulling the other kids at night to start to wean them, we are not taking this kid from his dam at all. All the animals have been treated for coccidia at this point because the vet said it is best to treat everyone so it doesn't go from one animal to another. They are now on the 1/2 dose in their water that is recommended as maintenance for 21 days.

We did clean everything, and it is dry where we live (intermountain west--pretty much desert). And you are right, we don't really have problems with worms, the vet is just trying to figure out how to get the little guy healthy again. He pretty much just sits around and can't stand up well--he falls down alot again.

He had polioencepholamacia about a month ago--the vitamin B shots are what made the coccidia bloom (since they love vitamin B!). So we treated for the goat polio, and he got a bit better. Then he got worse--we found out it was because of the coccidia.

The vet also said that he probably has some damage to his digestive tract that will need to heal--we're just trying to figure out how to get him healthy as quickly as we can. He's a good little kid!

He also gets some ProBios gel everyday to help his rumen keep working.

Since our vet isn't really a goat vet, but is willing to work with us, I really wanted some internet opinions from people who deal with goats everyday.

Thanks again for your reply. I'll hold off on the worming for a while.
If there is anything else you think I should be doing, I would really appreciate it.


I'd want to know the CAE status of the dam. Goat polio in a young (month old ?) kid would be very unlikely. However, encephalitis from CAE can happen in kids around that age and from the neurological symptoms you are describing I would consider this a high possibility. It can linger for some time before they die from it. The symptoms are similar to goat polio.

Selenium deficiency is another possibility but it sounds like the other kids are not affected so is less likely.

Coccidia will not bloom from B vitamin injections. It sounds more like the kid has a very weakened immune system which is allowing the coccidia to flourish.

Probios does not do anything for the rumen. It only supplies friendly intestinal bacteria which won't hurt given the serious coccidia infection. Is the kid eating anything else besides milk?

Karin Christensen

Hi Karin,
Thank you for your email. The dam tested CAE neg in the fall. He was about 6 weeks when he started with the polio. We never thought of CAE at that young age. It may be a possibility since I have heard that even a CAE neg herd will have kids that test positive from time to time. I didn't know that the symptoms for CAE in kids and goat polio were so similar. That is good to know.

No, none of the other kids are affected. Not even a hint of anything like this, so I'm not sure about the Se deficiency. Although we did buy some Bo-Se gel and gave the buckling some last night. The dose was 2cc (as the Goat Wisdom site suggests (http:// goatwisdom.proboards.com/index.cgi? board=references&action=display&thread=1354).

If the kids immune system was weakened already, and the coccidia was present (everything I've read says that coccidia is always present), the thiamine would encourage the coccidia to reproduce at a higher rate. There are a few papers that my husband found and read. I listed one of them on the GoatBiology group. We had no idea that coccidia was thiamine dependent. It makes perfect sense why Corid would be bad for goats (or chickens or other animals) that need thiamine.

Yes, the kid eats grass/alfalfa hay mix (from the supplier that supplies to the horse people) and grazes on the pasture besides drinking milk.

Thanks for your help. I really appreciate your wisdom, advice, and experience. I admire all the research you do and I am thankful that you are willing to share it with newbies like us. You are always so kind in your replies, too. I may feel helpless at times, but people like you who are not judgmental, keep more goats healthy than you know. You are a gift! You encourage us to do research on our own, ask questions when we have problems (if someone was telling me continually that I was stupid, I would stop asking questions!), and hopefully in the future, I will be able help others when they need it.

I am glad to know about the CAE and goat polio symptoms. If I can get someone to draw blood on the kid, I will have it sent for testing. I haven't done that yet and I don't know any goat owners in the area that even know about CAE, let alone test for it. If I had known the symptoms were so similar last week, I would have taken a sample from the vet and sent it out for testing.

Thanks again. All the information has been very helpful. I think my brain is beginning to ache :o) Guess that is a good thing! And my son, who wants to be a ruminant and camelid vet, is learning so much. It seems that no matter how hard we try to do everything right, our farm gets 'hit' with all sorts of problems. We've come to the conclusion that it is because he needs an education before he gets into vet school. He is getting it, so am I.


It won't do much good to test the kid. If mom has become positive he will have her antibodies. It is also known that if the goat is having serious symtoms from CAE they may test negative even if they have the virus. It's not known why.

Was the kid disbudded? If so, I'd consider the possibility of a brain abscess. Polio in a young nursing kid just never happens. If he dies see if you can have a necropsy done. This will give you good information that you can apply to your whole herd.

And, thanks for the very kind comments.

Karin


Thanks,
I didn't know that they could test negative if they had the CAE virus. Am I ever going to get to the point where I know what is going on?! We'll test the adults again for CAE.

Yes, he was disbudded. How would we know that he had a brain abscess? Are there other symptoms to look for? We've never had problems with disbudding before this year--we had two other kids that had some infections that we are in the process of clearing up. The kid in question was born two weeks earlier than all the rest and didn't have any infections after the disbudding, at least not on the outside.

He was born on March 18th, disbudded on March 23rd. We first noticed that something was wrong with his leg on April 24th. We thought that he had been playing and gotten a little sore and that's why his leg was stiff. We separated him and his dam from the herd so he could heal without running around. We noticed that the symptoms spread to his other leg on April 26th. The symptoms pointed to goat polio--but there was no information in our books or on the internet that said they don't get it if they are dam raised, all the other indications were that he might have goat polio so we treated for that. He was much better in about 3 days after the vitamin B shots and the penicillin. He was better (but still a little wobbly) until May 10th. That day he had the same symptoms as he did at his worst. We were able to find a vet that doesn't mind looking at goats. He is about an hour away. He was the one who did the fecal as well as ran a blood test.

The blood test said that the white blood cell count was extremely high (so he had the kid start on penicillin again, 2 cc sub q or IM 2x daily for 5 days) and the red blood cell count was extremely low. He said that usually indicates a large parasite load and he did a fecal test. He found the coccidia was high enough that he told my son that when you see that much coccidia, you just say, "Oh, h---" and treat it. He didn't see any other worm load at that time. Since he hasn't seen a goat with a large coccidia load, he recommended the Corid. I'm sure he had no idea that we shouldn't use it in goats.

Good to know about the Polio. I guess he must never have had it, then. I guess the only thing we can be sure of at this point is that he had a bad case of coccidia because the vet did see that in the
fecals.

I have a call into the vet to find out if he has any Albon, Sulmet, or Di-methox on hand. If he doesn't, we'll be waiting for Jeffer's to deliver. I can't believe that none of the feed stores have any of those medications on hand. That was weird to me. It sounds like coccidia is something that pops up from time to time, maybe even do a preventative dose in kids.

So, when you have goat kids, do you just treat them with a preventative when they reach a certain age? If you do, what do you use, what dosages do you give, and how long do you treat them for? We've got Saanens and a Nubian. The little kid in question is a Snubian. My son really wants a snubian doeling to see how much milk they give.

If he dies, we will have a necropsy done. We hope he doesn't die, but my son's 4-H leader said that, "If you have livestock, sooner or later you are going to have dead-stock." She didn't say it to be mean, just to let us know that if we lost an animal, that is part of raising livestock. Anything we can learn means that we are able to ID problems better in the future. Hopefully all this training will help my son when he becomes a vet. Although I love working with the goats,
his is his dream and I am trying to do the best I can to support, help, learn, and teach him. I don't know if I am doing a very good job. But he sees me spend hours a day with him, the goats, books, and searching the internet for the 'right' way to do things.

Thanks again for the information. My son said thanks, too.

Given the high white count and the neurological symptoms I'd say that he has some type of encephalitis. They call this meningoencephalitis due to the area of brain that is usually affected in kids. This can be an infiltration of bacteria from the naval, or the kid did not get enough colostrum so it didn't get enough passive immunity, or it could be from lesions and abscess from disbudding. You would not see any infection from the disbudding on the surface.

Encephalitis from CAE will usually affect the hind legs first like you are seeing. But, since the dam was negative that isn't high on the list, now. Also, the white count usually isn't sky high, but may be only slightly high or high but within normal range.

The antibiotics are probably what helped him feel better for awhile. You don't mention if he had a fever at any time. About the only sure way to diagnose brain abscess is with a necropsy, unfortunately. High doses of antibiotics that cross the blood brain barrier such as penicillin may help, but according to Smith and Sherman's, Goat Medicine, prognosis is guarded. If he were mine, I'd go ahead and hit him with penicillin at least twice the recommended amount and continue for 5 days. At this point if he is going downhill it can't hurt. Super high white counts mean bacterial infection.

The coccidia is probably going on along with it not the cause of it. I'm not sure but the high white count could be due to coccidia, but not the neurological signs.

Young kids on milk usually do not get polio because this is a problem caused by the rumen bacteria. Certain types overgrow usually after a sudden change to a higher plane of nutrition and produce an anti-thiamine enzyme. The rumen in young kids is not developed enough to have this type of overgrowth. Given the good diet your goats are on also would not usually lead to polio. Milk has enough B vitamins for kids.

I always keep sulfadimethoxine on hand. It's one of those things you need but can't get quickly. Some feed stores will carry a pouch of the powdered version which works, too. Mixing it up is a bit complicated then you have a bunch that you never use again. You can get a bottle of 40% liquid which I mix with some sort of fruit juice. The kids do not mind it all. I do not use any prevention for coccidia, I rarely have problems. I live in a dry area and even when the pens are not as clean as they should be I rarely have a kid with diarrhea. If one develops diarrhea I treat with the sulfa drug. The sulfa will also treat any bad intestinal bacterial overgrowth as well.

I wish I could send you flowers or something.

We'll get him on another round of penicillin. We will have sulfa on hand from now on. My husband is a chemist, he does calculations extremely well, so I'm not worried about the powder (which is what he ordered). I'll let him know that it will be not last after he mixes it up. He has some extremely accurate scales in the lab, he may be able to cut down on the amount he mixes up so we don't have to throw so much away.

No, he didn't have a fever. I forgot to mention that. We live in a dry area, too. I guess that is why we haven't had any problems with coccidia before. He didn't have scours, either, which threw us off the coccidia trail at the very beginning. Looking back on it, we did clean the stalls a few days before his symptoms appeared. We also wormed his dam with Safeguard about the same time. The stalls weren't terrible since we have a beautiful horse barn with 12x12 stalls (courtesy of the last owners). And the stalls had been cleaned out 2 weeks before we started kidding. The stalls have the special horse mats with layers of lyme, gravel, and sand underneath, so they stay drier than if we had a dirt floor. We use straw as bedding since we had trouble with shavings one time (everyone got scours from the shavings--probably just a bad batch of shavings).

We were thinking about neurological signs and the only thing we could come up with was, maybe it wasn't neurological--maybe the coccidia was making him weak and it just started in his hind end? I don't know, it sure looked like he had a stiff leg, not a weak leg at the beginning. Now he just acts wobbly and weak again. He does eat if we put hay in front of him. I know he is nursing still because the dam is empty on one side, but full on the other. She is one that is usually fairly even.

We found another vet about noon who has some Albon (pill) that he was willing to sell us. He was very nice and said that he has good success with Albon. Maybe we will switch vets, after all. The other one wasn't too thrilled when I asked for something besides Corid this morning.

Great idea to mix meds with fruit juice. I love that! I will remember that one for anytime we have to drench someone :o)

Really, I appreciate everything. Two people that I really trust on the internet--you and Willie Boepple, have always been very kind in your responses. Thank you for taking so much time out of your day to help us. Your advice and help has been invaluable.

And we love your CD, that was the first reference 'thing' I bought when my son started his goat adventure. I've recommended it to others when they start with goats. I'm not sure if they purchased one or not, but I am very glad that we have one.
Thanks again.

Buddy is getting better!

Buddy, the little kid goat that was full of coccidia, is doing much better. This morning he received his last shot of PenG. He still falls over a bit, but I'm sure over the next few days he will become stronger! Very few wobbles and falling over today.

We also decided that we would have to dose everyone individually instead of in their drinking water. Supposedly you can add the Corid (amprolium) to their only water source and they will drink it. But these animals are all on pasture so they won't drink the nasty tasting water. They get the water they need from the fresh grass and weeds. The goats are easy to dose, just put a syringe with 5ml of Corid in their mouth and squirt. They hate it, but they can't spit it out because it isn't a big enough dose. The kids are the same, but they get a 1ml dose. The baby lambs are easy to dose, too, we just give them 1ml in their morning feeding bottle.

The llama, huarizo, lamb, and buck are harder. So we had to put them on the dry-lot and give them dry hay and a single source of medicated water. Hopefully all will go well and we will be rid of coccidia for the rest of the year.

Vet Trip

We ended up going to the vet on Monday. It was an hour drive south of here. The vet was fantastic because he let Vet2Be help a bit!

We took our little sick goat down there to find out exactly what was wrong with him. The vet checked him over and couldn't find anything so he ran some blood work. Vet2Be got to see how to draw blood from a goat (from the vein in it's neck).

Buddy is a S'nubian, his dad is a Saanen, his mom is a Nubian.
He will be 8 weeks old May 13th (tomorrow).

The blood work came back with the white blood cell count twice the normal range, and the red blood cell count less than 1/2 the normal range. The vet said that was an indication of a heavy parasite load and decided to run a fecal exam.

I've run fecals before, but haven't ever been very good at them. Since the microscope is broken right now, I haven't run them at all.

Vet2Be got to see how to run a fecal and he got to look through the microscope. The vet said that the poor little goat was over-run with coccidia. I wouldn't have guessed coccidia at all because Buddy didn't have scours. He could hardly walk and spent most of his time lying down in the sunshine.

We are sure that he had Goat Polio (Polioencepholamacia) a few weeks ago. We also think that is what caused the 'bloom' of coccidia since coccidia love Vitamin B. Buddy had received a number of vitamin B shots since polioencepholamacia is a Thiamine deficiency.

Buddy is still on 2 shots of PenG Max (2cc) twice a day for a total of 7 days. The vet said his white blood count is so high that he is probably still fighting an infection of some sort. He is also being treated for coccidia, as are all the animals on the property.

This is Buddy's mom, Clover.