How many of you do home fecals?

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Curious as to how many board members do their own fecals on home microscopes? I'm eager to find out how easy it is, what do different worms look like - in other words what do you see when you look under the microscope? Also, how much of a sample is placed on a slide? Thanks.

-- Lynn (moonspinner@bluefrognet.net), April 28, 2002

Answers

Here is just a brief overview. All of this can be found at saanendoah.com including Karen Christensen's excellent photos of the worms and cocci themselves.

You will need a cheapo microscope, all fecals are done on minimum power, don't spend your money on an expenisve one since some folks use the 40$ one from Toys R us, the one good feature you want is a light source, though reflector types will work they are harder to see out of.

Tongue depressers

1 test tube

1 eye dropper

salt solution, just take tepid water and stir in salt (not idoized, I used stock salt) into it until it will hold no more, you can save it from fecal to fecal or make it fresh.

ziplock baggie to pick up fresh sample, use like a glove then pull inside out to use as bag.

slide*

Take 7 freshly pooped nanny berries. Put them into your test tube, using the eyedropper, fill the test tube with the salt solution. Take the tongue depresser and snap it in half lengthwise,, use it to swish and slurry the poop and salt water together, let it set. The poop falls to the bottom, the bubbles to the top. Take your eye dropper and get a sample of the water from the middle of the tube. Squirt this onto a slide, the very best slide **** http://www.advancedequine.com/veterinary/mcmaster.html though you can use a normal slide, it will only tell you if yes or no you have worm eggs. With a McMasters slide you can not only tell if yes or no you have worm eggs, but how many, a good rule of thumb is 200 eggs per gram and you need to worm during the spring and summer, 2000 eggs per gram and you need to worm druing the fall and winter. After counting, then look up and see what kind of worms you are seeing, look for cocci occysts, their numbers have to be in the thousands before they cause problems in adults, hundreds for kids. Worm your goats........................in 7 days refecal, recount and if your numbers are not down, your wormer is not working. You expect your wormer to kill 99%. A zero number is nearly as bad as 100's. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), April 28, 2002.


Wow! Great info. I have a cheap microscope and now that I have the "how to", I'm going to try it. I like the fact that it will take the guess work out of worming. Thanks Vicki, I'm so glad I came across this forum! There is so much great information that is shared here. It's especially helpful to us "new" goat owners.

-- Jan ME (FourWindsFarm97@yahoo.com), April 28, 2002.

Thanks for posting the links about the pictures. I have one goat Coco who is a 10 year old pet. But I also raise rabbits and have been wanting to do the fecals on them also. I have a microsope but has been 23 years since I took my microbiolgy classes! But with all the good information on resource books I shall continue on with my own studies! By the way finding a good rabbit vet in this area is as tough as finding a good goat vet! Denise

-- Denise K. (Rabbitmom2@webbworks.com), April 28, 2002.

Vicki, you never cease to amaze me - taking the time to write that all out! Thanks you! Still would like to know about members' experiences in using the home fecal.

-- Lynn (moonspinner@bluefrognet.net), April 29, 2002.

Lynn, Iwent on the search lastnight and found a site www.spottedcats.com has all the pictures your need printed it off and went through my sons closet for a microscope I bought him 4 years ago.for xmas.this is gonna be fun playing with poop.just to see what you see.Pam

-- Pam (pams65@hotmail.com), April 29, 2002.


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