Although I had read about and heard about coccidiosis, I realised that I was totally unprepared for the reality of facing it and that unless you are well prepared before hand then you have probably already lost the battle. We lost three 4.5– 5kg eastern grey joeys in March of this year and it is an experience I hope never to repeat. I hope by putting a few notes together that others may avoid what I have found to be the worst experience I have ever been through.
This paper offers some sources of detailed information on coccidiosis, it's treatment and prevention, some information about what others are doing by way of prevention and my thoughts of what I would do differently in the future. The most important thing to be stressed here is that you must know about this disease BEFORE it strikes.
Sources of Information:I found three sources of information very useful:
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“Coccidia from a Layman's point of view” written by Enid Latham in January 1997. These are easy to read notes that explain the disease, its treatment and prevention. These notes are on the Ozark website.
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“Coccidiosis (Intestinal)” From Lynda Staker's manual “Don't Step Backwards” This manual is available by sending cheque/money order to Lynda for $57.50 care of Dawn Miller, M.S. 509, Sarina, Qld, 4737. Again very straight forward to read and I combined some of Lynda's suggested treatment with Enid's.
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“Coccidiosis” A talk by Dr Ian Carmichael, B.V.Sc., D.V. Sc Melb, Chief Veterinary Parasitologist at the South Australian Research and Development Institute. This paper can be accessed at the Australian Marsupial Society's website.
http://www.marsupialsociety.org.au/coccidiosis.htm
I think it is worth sharing the specifics of the situation I found myself in as everyone involved determined that we would certainly do things differently in the future. I may well look foolish to those of you with more experience, however others may well then avoid this problem. Three eastern grey joeys were moved to my property for release on the 5th March. They were all females and ranged in size from 4kg to 4.55kg. They had all come into care at just over 1kg, had one carer and had progressed without incidence to this point. They were moved by car and the journey took about 45 minutes. In the previous week the drought had well and truly broken and their pen had been muddy and they had been very wet. After coming to us the rain continued. Although a bit nervous for the first 24 hours they appeared to settle in well. With the benefit of hindsight I'd say the first signs came on the 11th - their 7th day.
The largest of the 3 didn't drink all her milk and moved slightly oddly - hard to describe this movement, a bit like a moonwalk and only for a few seconds so it could have been easily missed. I was not unduly concerned about the milk, as I had actually increased the quantity of milk slightly from when they arrived. The next morning all were well, poos fine, eating grass normally. It was a very wet day and all seemed a bit fed-up of it, trying to find dry spots to shelter in. That night two of them drank slightly less milk and now I was concerned. I checked gums and poos (the gums because I have been through the blood parasite which starts similarly and so I was looking for signs of anaemia.) All seemed fine. Again the next morning all seemed fine, plenty of grass had been eaten and all poos looked fine.
This is now day 9 since their arrival. Again it was a very wet day. All seemed miserable but was it the rain, the parasite? The other kangaroos on our property looked equally miserable. As it was getting cold I decided to give them part of their milk a little earlier - one of them refused to take it. At 5.30pm another had what I'd describe as loose poos - started normal and ended much more liquefied. At this time we were too late, given our location, to get her to a vet but madly started gathering information from other carers. At 8:30pm this same roo started with the bloody diarrhoea. The roo that had refused the earlier milk still refused milk but her poos seemed normal, she just appeared lethargic. At 1am this roo started with the bloody diarrhoea and all three were grinding their teeth.
First thing in the morning we took this one to the vet who diagnosed coccidiosis. We immediately started on Enid's regime of warmth; Baycox and fluids plus we added the peptosyl and vitamin K from Lynda's book and buscopan for the obvious pain. We were far too late. From her first bloody diarrhoea at about 1am on Friday morning our first roo died at 2pm on Saturday (37 hours). She was the smallest of the 3, the 2nd, who had been the first to start with the diarrhoea, died at 2am on Sunday morning. The last we had great hope of saving as she had been eating well with normal poos up until Saturday afternoon. She fought on but we lost her on Tuesday evening.
So what did we learn?
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I now prefer to take the joeys right from the start, then I know that I can tell any slight changes in them immediately and they don't have the stress of changing locations or carers. (I'm well aware this won't always be possible.)
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Even when we noticed the changes in thee joeys the diagnosis could have been other than coccidiosis. The start is very like the parasite - lethargy, off milk etc. and is also similar to peritonitis, so we need another way of determining what we are dealing with. We are currently investigating microscopes to do our own faecal floats so that we can look for a build-up of oocysts and therefore treat accordingly. Several groups use this method. If we don't go the microscope way, and possibly even if we do, we will use one of the preventative methods described in this paper.
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Never move animals in the critical weight brackets. As you'll read from Enid's papers the 4.5 - 5kg size and the 6.5 - 8kg brackets seems to be a high-risk time.
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Never move animals in these weather conditions. I honestly think that, as much as anything, we have been victims of the breaking of the drought. After such a long period of dry I believe the oocysts went crazy once the rains came. The pen where these animals came from had had some 15 animals in it over about 18 months and therefore there was probably plenty to work with - though I suspect they would not have become ill at all without the added stress of moving. All eastern greys have cocci and although I believe in pen cleanliness (and their pens were kept clean at both sites), I don't think this was the major issue - though I would probably give a preventative dose of Baycox if we went through such drastic climatic change again.
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Mimic their previous diet as closely as possible. These animals went through 3 major changes at once. They moved location, carer and diet. Our grass was far lusher than their previous and I was not supplementing with any dry feed. I don't know if this added additional stress, however I think gradual change is probably better and now more closely observe previous diet.
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We are also considering that when animals are moved, Valium or similar should be used to minimise the stress as well as a preventative dose of Baycox.
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To be totally honest I think that if I had an animal with Coccidiosis in the future and it reached the bloody diarrhoea stage I would have it euthanased. Death from this disease is reasonably quick in many ways but I believe it is very painful and I don't want to see animals going through that with negligible chance of saving them. In talking to many people very few people know of cases where an animal has been saved post the bloody diarrhoea stage and those that are often succumb to things like pneumonia shortly afterwards.
So in conclusion we made several mistakes, moving the wrong size animals in the wrong weather conditions and not using any preventative measures against Coccidiosis. It is easy to look back on all this and be extremely critical (I haven't stopped kicking myself now I know what I know!), however in several local branches of wildlife carers Coccidiosis has not been a major problem in years - therefore it fell into the background of everything else that has to be done in caring.
Prevention:Different groups are doing different things by way of prevention. The key concerns raised, with regard to prevention, is that the constant use of drugs like Baycox may see the development of a more virulent strain of Coccidiosis against which no drug would be effective and also that the animals need to build up immunity to cocci before being released or they may simply gain the disease at the first signs of stress after release.
I have found the following methods have been used in various groups:
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Use of microscope to regularly check oocyst numbers, treating accordingly if they rise. I have read a couple of reports that suggest that positive confirmation of cocci is not always easy to achieve in every case, so that this will not always be fool-proof. Faecal floats are usually done fortnightly.
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Use of Baycox in adverse weather conditions - ie: wet and warm. Piglet seems to be more palatable than the chicken, however both seem to be equally effective.
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Use of Coccivet, 0.1ml per kg body weight in bottles. The Coccivet has two active ingredients; ethopabate and amprolium.
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Dosing with Baycox every 21 days until final release. As previously mentioned some vets are concerned this may breed a resistant strain of coccidiosis and Baycox can also cause gut problems (as can most things with Eastern greys).
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Use of Sulpha-Quin in one bottle per day until weaned. 1-2mls of Sulpha-Quin to 500mls water - this water used to make up the bottle.
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Goats milk - see Enid Latham's paper
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Plasma transfers - see Enid Latham's paper
All groups agree that cleanliness is critical:
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Pick up faeces in grazing areas at least once per day.
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Feed any supplementary foods off the ground.
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Move feeding and watering points frequently.
There are also both goat pellets and kangaroo pellets available that contain coccistats (preventatives), though no one seems to be using these alone as a preventative.
Some people have asked why wild kangaroos appear not to be affected and there seem several possible reasons for this; firstly as the joey belongs to a structured group they are not stressed in the same way as a hand-raised joey and thus their immune system stays strong, secondly there is a theory that wild kangaroos also have an instinct to eat certain plants which may offer remedies when they fall ill, thirdly they most likely gain more immunity via their mother's milk and by their early exposure to the oocysts and of course kangaroos move through about 20 hectares of grazing country on average so overgrazing should not be an issue.