# Toltrazuril - how much each and how to dose them?



## GBov (May 4, 2008)

Being in the middle of a HUGE move its a really baaaaaad time to be having troubles in the rabbitry but that's life, isn't it? 

I am almost sure its cocci - spotty liver in necropsied rabbit - but Corid didn't seem to work very well and I am still loosing rabbits.

A friend gave me a half bottle of Toltrazuril but, in between loading, driving, unloading and repeat I just cant find ANY info on how to dose and how much per rabbit in the few snatched moments for internet searches.

Rave reviews of the product but not a sausage on how to use the danged stuff!

Does anyone here know? And if so, please PLEASE tell all!


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## bonnie in indiana (May 10, 2002)

Just my 2cents. Spotty Liver can be many things. I had cocci this year and my buns were really sick,,not eating, BLOATY belly, listless, snotty butts. I treated with CORID and they pulled through. It may be something else.

The one thing I did find out about cocci. is that you don't keep any of the rabbits for breeders that have had it. A percentage of the young seem to be affected with a balance disorder and a couple of experienced people have told me it is due to the cocci that the parents have had. 

Like I said--just my 2cents worth.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

I had a 'fun' time with coccidiosis. There are two types - hepatic and intestinal. Hepatic is really hard to treat and generally you just cull unthrifty ones. 

Coccidiosis is mostly a cleanliness managed disease. It spread rampantly through wood surfaces - which is why all wire cages are strongly suggested. And, keeping those free of 'poo matts' etc. I didn't even put resting boards in my cages because I'd just cull for bad feet before putting something unsanitary in there. But then, I had about as bad of intestinal coccidiosis here killing close to 90% of every growout pen. 

I treated the ADULTS with toltrazuril orally for 2-3 days in a row at 'high' doses. I would correspond the treatment to a THOROUGH cleaning of the cage. Day 1, treat rabbit; day 2, clean cage thoroughly and treat rabbit. day 3, treat rabbit. I used .5 cc per full size commercial meat rabbit orally. This is 2x the reccomended dose of .25cc per 10lbs. I had zero issues doing it this way and it CURED the horrendous outbreak. I also switched to all wire hanging cages and practiced extreme sanitation to achieve this goal. 

For young kits, I would use less... Really varied with the kit but I planned this AROUND kindlings/pregnancies/growouts as it has a 70 day meat withdrawal. Take a break in breeding and cull down to the jrs and adults you need to keep. Treat and clean cages for the animals you intend to keep and breed, and I preferred to do so when not pregnant, lactating, or in animals that I did not intend to keep. You will want to treat ALL animals at the same time and clean ALL cages at the same time! You do not want a reservoir of oocysts. I flamed the cages with a torch and usually sprayed with a strong disinfectant. 

Adults infect the babies, which get passive immunity through the milk/colostrum. At weaning, they usually become highly susceptible and start dying/showing signs. If the adults are not shedding a highly disease causing strain, then you will see reduced/eliminated symptoms especially if you optimize sanitation.


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## GBov (May 4, 2008)

Thank you so much Mygoat!

I am crossing my fingers that what I finally went with will work but, as my rabbits are 300 miles away in the care of a friend I had to go simple.

2.5 ml per gallon mixed fresh per day for two days with today being day two.

Do you think that will work? And should I call her and add a day?

Next week will see 16 breeders moved down and empty cages, all of which will be disinfected. 

Which disinfectant do you like to use?

I had no problem AT ALL until I got a "bargain" on some standard rex.

Not such a bargain after all, esp after loosing so many of my favorites and their kits as well.


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## GBov (May 4, 2008)

Forgot to add, how long to be sure the rabbits have responded to the toltrazuril and are healthy FOR GOOD?


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

The only way to test it is to have litters born and see if they thrive. Now, my problem was intestinal coccidiosis, and I"m not quite as familiar with the hepatic form. As someone else stated, there are other reasons for issues with the liver as well. But for me, I had ZERO adults die. I only had weanlings dying - but it was at an extraordinary rate. I knew the adults had it as well, and were the reservoirs for the offspring to pick it up - but adult animals are rarely affected by coccidiosis problems once they 'get over' it as offspring. The adults *can* get ill when they are first exposed to the more deadly forms (there are several strains and not all are deadly) if the dose is high enough - but their mortaility rate is decreased significantly and they usually recover -but then are reservoirs.

Here is a great resource on rabbits and disease/pathology . If you scroll down, you will find the table of content links for diseases (and other topics!). You can also download this in the top right corner as a PDF.  http://www.fao.org/docrep/t1690e/t1690e00.HTM#Contents


The problem with dosing in the water is that it settles out and they do NOT get an accurate dose (You will see a film on the bottom of the water dish, and the water will appear clear). Even when dosing directly you must keep shaking the bottle. I would use it that way to perhaps prevent deaths in the meantime in rabbits that far away, but I wouldn't consider it curative. I would highly highly recommend direct dosing the rabbits when they are in your care.

And finally, I know hepatic coccidiosis is difficult to successfully treat. Not a lot of documentation on toltrazuril's effectiveness at treating this successfully as it's a fairly new drug and NOT approved for use in the US - illegal to use in food producing animals. I cannot speak to how to know they are healthy 'for good'. I know after my outbreak, I did an isolation and dosing with baycox when I brought in any new rabbits. The problem is the breeder may have healthy stock for the most part, coccidiosis is pretty rampant everywhere. Their management/setup may be conducive to healthy rabbits, but your different management, housing on top of the stress of sale may allow problems to show up. Not saying your setup is poor, but the animals aren't used to it. Not fair to always blame the source breeder for a disease that is endemic and mostly management based. You raise/sell/buy livestock and this eventually happens to everyone. I hate rabbit breeder blame games.


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## akane (Jul 19, 2011)

That year of insane humidity and heat where we were putting containers of frozen water in the colonies is what caused our horrible cocci outbreak. I did treat rabbits with corid but it wasn't anywhere near as effective as just getting everything clean and dry. All the young rabbits were dying so we started butchering everything below breeding age and if it was too small to be useful it was dog food. We were having 5-10 young rabbits a day dead. Better to get 2 lbs of dog food than throw it on the pile of dead bodies. Once everything was clean and dry again the adults produced healthy litters with no future problems. We had no digestive symptoms or balance issues. No mystery deaths. They just went back to reproducing fine.


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## GBov (May 4, 2008)

My biggest fear is that it is NOT cocci. My cages are all wire, the barn is open sided and it hasn't been either wet or dirty. Not even very hot as they are in deep shade.

Was up there yesterday bringing down the dog pen panels to build the new rabbitry with - so the dogs cant get at them but can keep rats out of the yard - and there was a doe that couldn't walk, another dead kits and most rabbits still looking off color.

I don't usually blame a breeder but she told me she had lost 17 rabbits to heat stroke the week I was due to pick them up, including my favorite in the pictures she sent me, and when I told her that I was having deaths she said she hadn't lost any rabbits for over 6 months. Ah well, never mind, all I want now is MY rabbits to be well!


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## GBov (May 4, 2008)

After much thought I have decided to cull everything under breeding age when I go up to get them. If I ice them down really well for the trip I can freeze them for my dog who loves frozen rabbit and they wont go to waste. The rest will get .5cc Toltrazuril shot down their gullets for three days and we will see if that sorts the problem.

Should I drop that dosage for the Florida Whites in my herd? 

And one of the FLs is nursing four kits that look super fine and have bloodlines we don't have access to anymore. Can I dose them too or will they get the medication second hand through their mum?

On a better note I got the rabbitry walls built yesterday and am going to hang 16 cages today. Its starting to look like home again!


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