Cocci care

[JohnBoy]

If you live in a hot damp area should you treat birds with cocci care as a preventative once a year? I have read where bird fanciers and breeders do this.

[nixity]

I think you would first need to find out if your birds had it to determine if it was necessary.
If your birds are not housed in an outdoor aviary, I do not think it is really necessary.

I would say if your birds are shedding the oocysts, you should just treat the entire flock for Cocci with something like Baycox or Trimethoprim Sulfa, and follow that up with a ridiculously thorough sanitation.
I have read that the cysts are extremely resilient to even bleach, so hot bleach water is the trick when sanitizing drinkers, perches, cages, etc.
If you are not using open drinkers that can easily be soiled with feces, then you will also eliminate some risk of spreading it if you have infected birds.

If you feel like getting the environment free of the cysts (which will thrive in humid, damp, hot environments if present) will be virtually impossible, then maybe using cocci-care during the summer months would be beneficial but only necessary if you know you have a problem.

Otherwise, you are just wasting money on medication you don't need, and medicating the birds unnecessarily :\

[JohnBoy]

Thanks Tiffany.

[cindy]

Coccidia is indeed hard to get rid of and is resistant to bleach since the germ cell is double coated. Our cavalier came to us from a man we thought had bred his cavaliers, he was actually a broker dealing with mills in Missouri. She had coccidia and was very ill. The yard had to be cleaned up when she passed a stool and the area sprayed or doused with a mixture of equal parts of bleach and Lysol mixed in water. My grass turned a really nice shade of brown but she never got it back. Giardia is another concern in the damp and rainy weather...and frankly living in Florida I have had enough for now thank you.

From what I learned early on when I started breeding birds is that bleach is not a common cure all and some single celled organisms that can cause animals, birds and even us are sort of double coated, a thicker outer casing and bleach needs some help.

I use this mixture when washing a cage down, sterlizing a sick birds cups and cage (remove the bird to a clean cage of course) If using a previously used cage for a new bird. I use the mixture, either soak the cage in it or fill a bucket with the mixture and wash the cage down well and pour the remaining contents of the bucket on the cage, rinse well and set in the sun to completely dry. It works well getting dried droppings off. I ran this by my avian vet when caring for one of my very ill parrots. I even use this is someone has the flu to clean their bathroom and eating area.

I am not sure how you would use this in your aviary John, I suppose you could pour a bucket of it over the floor and scrub and rinse well wait a week during sunny weather for it to dry and the bleach to break down. I would check with a avaian specialist.

this is a very good site for all the little creepy crawly things, it is mostly geared to the 4 legged pets.
http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_coccidia.html