Fecal Sampling

The vet I used before I got my microscope charged $10, so yes, that seems expensive to me.

Tamera

 

Ouch, get a microscope! If you feel uncomfortable doing it yourself, perhaps you could pay your vet for an appointment and have them teach you? It's really easy.

If he does them for you, make sure he tells you what kind of worms and how high the worm count is.

 

Ask them up front if they use a chambered slide. If they don't pass, all they can do is give you the standard line, "yes you have eggs" which means nothing you already know you have eggs. What you want is to identify which kind and have a vet that can tell the difference between hookworms and HC and be able to tell you how man eggs per gram EPG you have so you know if you need to worm or not. Vicki

 

And if they won't teach you to do a fecal then call around. $25 is expensive, it is only $10 here also.
Theresa

 

We have 5 or 6 vets around here and the most expensive was $16.00 the cheaspest $8.00..so I agree that $25.00 seems high. I have been doing my own fecals for a couple months now and love it. In fact, my kids joke with me as the microscope has just found a place in the house and stays set up and ready to go. I was able to buy the flotation solution from the vet...I have a gallon of it for $16.00 so I am sure I will have to throw it out before I ever use it all. The first couple of times I ran fecal myself, I also took them to the vet and had her run them jsut to make sure we agreed..so far so good.

Paula

 

Linda, I got my microscope off of ebay for 35 bucks. I do not have the chambered slides yet - that is next on the list.

 

I found my microscope on Craigslist. Everything worked out wonderful and $40 later I had a microscope. Yep, that's the end of the story cuz I can't seem to do the solution correctly. I think I will follow Paula's idea and ask the vet. I really want to get started on this, and it's about the only thing DH has gotten excited about (goat wise).

Wendy

 

Just pile some epsom salt in some water and leave it, stir it every now and then and make sure there's always some in the bottom so it's a super saturated solution. Works fine for me.

 

Did the epson salt, no luck. Does the water have to be warm and do you leave it to sit for a certain amount of time? Maybe I should be blaming something else that I did wrong?

Wendy

 

If you heat the water, it will dissolve much quicker. Otherwise about a day, it helps to give it the occasional stir. It takes a suprising amount of salt.

 

Thanks, Ashley. Will give it another whirl. Maybe I just didn't put enough.

Wendy

 

Just a note on price for fecals...this does sound a bit high but when comparing...make sure you're apples to apples. For instance there was a vet in this area who did them for $8, others were $15-17. Come to find out...the cheap one was a direct smear which is not very accurate for most parasites and won't give you a count, the others floated or centrifuged/floated them.

 

I could never get the epsom salt solution to work either nor the zinc oxide solution. I asked my vet to buy me a gallong of Fecolsol. That's what he uses. Ask your vet or look on line to order.

 

USE Sue Reiths solution either the salt (table) or sugar works fine for me. I have fecasol and don't use it.

 

I also use Fecasol solution. Much easier to pump it out of a gallon jug when I need it rather than having to make it with epsom salts, table salt or sugar. It's very inexpensive as well.

Sara

 

Would something like this work?

http://cgi.ebay.com/40x-400x-NEW-MO...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

You can ask your vet for a discount, too. Ours charges $20 per fecal regularly, but with more than one goat, she charges just $10 per fecal.

 

A saline solution is salt and water out of the tap.
A saturated solution is warm water with salt in it.
A super staurated solution is boiling water with enough salt in it to leave salt at the bottom of the container.

I have used both of the last two and prefer the last one. I was taught with hot water straight from the waterheater and stock salt, he could stir with his arm in the bucket so it could not have been super hot. I use uniodized table salt in boiling water. I then simply store it in the fridge so I am only making it every 3 or 4 months maybe? I have never used anything but regular salt. Vicki