DIY fecals....

[Kagez28]

i was wondering if anyone on here did their own fecal exams. see what happened with Emily and her ball python i have an urge to make sure my collection is as healthy as they look. i would take them to a vet, but $22 a pop for 10 snakes is a little out of my budget at the moment. i am in a histology class right now and i talked to the professor about helping me make some slides and he said he was all up for it. unlike me he kind of wants to see something in the slides.

does anyone do their own fecals, or can point me in a direction that will help me out. i found an article about floats and making slides but if anyone has some first hand experience that would be great. thanks.

[tigerlily]

I haven't done one in quite a few years, but if memory serves the poo was put into a special container and then filled with water. The container filtered the majority poo out and you put a slip cover on the top and let it sit for 10 minutes or so. Then you dropped the slip cover on the slide and started searching. I think we looked through a 40x lens for the majority of eggs, but you'll need something stronger to find coccidia I believe.

You can look at a direct smear, but it's much harder to see anything with all the poo.

You'll also want to browse some images of coccidia, hookworm, and various other eggs and protozoa. That way you'll know if you find anything.

[SatanicIntention]

Just to clear up any confusion, a direct smear doesn't contain so much fecal material that you can't see the slide underneath. You want to get a small amount of the sample, mix it with a good amount of water so that you can see through it, and then put the cover slip on it.

Fecal floats won't find giardia unless they are just infested, so smears are good to do in most cases. I usually do a smear first while the float is taking its 8 minutes to do its thing. This is also a good time to break open any tapeworm packets to look at the eggs(if you want to).

[lord jackel]

Becky...I found this site that sells the float kits...is this something like you use?

http://www.revivalanimal.com/store/p...on-System.aspx

I was thinking about trying to do this as well...more for learning than anything. Found some good deals on microscopes on eBay.

[SatanicIntention]

Yeah, those work fine, I just prefer the less expensive method of empty pill bottles and slides/coverslips. Everyone has pill bottles laying around(the small 1 oz or something brown/orange pill bottles)

[WingedWolfPsion]

I understand you can make a float medium out of concentrated sugar water, too.
A good microscope is of course crucial. So is this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-...1192963&sr=1-6

This book is absolutely fantastic, can't recommend it enough.

The process of making a slide really isn't that difficult--understanding what you see on the slide takes a bit more practice, but that book shows you exactly what to look for. I see no reason why people couldn't be doing their own fecal exams on their animals, if they have the equipment for it. Of course if you find something, you want to have a vet confirm it and administer the correct medication--for one thing, most of the necessary meds can't be found over the counter, and for another, I know _I_ would not want to try measuring out the right dose of horse paste for small snake...
Bean Farm used to carry flagyl powder AND powdered panacur wormer, but neither were intended for use in reptiles. Using the Panacur would have been a test of anyone's ability to count particles smaller than the size of sand grains...approximately 3 of them for an animal the size of a bearded dragon, lol...not exactly precise measuring.

[Kagez28]

for the fecal float do you just use water or sodium nitrate?

i have read to dissolve the fecal matter in sodium nitrate, then put the cover slip on top. as for the smear i was just going to smear it very thinly on the slide and drop some saline solution on it. i have a scope that will got 10x 40x and using oil emerson 100x. i was also thinking of taking it down to the electron microscope and seeing things 1,000,000x

[WingedWolfPsion]

The method I know of involves taking a concentrated sugar solution, putting it in a test tube, and stirring in the sample (being sure to break it up completely). You fill the tube up to the very top, and place a coverslip over it, and let it sit there.
Parasite eggs/cysts will float to the top of the solution, and adhere to the cover slip. You remove the slip and place it on a slide (with or without a stain), and see what's there.

You can't use plain water, because the eggs won't float to the surface in water.

[slartibartfast]

Right...plain water won't work. You want a solution with maximum density so that the eggs will float to the surface and adhere to the coverslip. We use Fecasol (Sodium nitrate, I think) at work. I've heard that a super-saturated sugar solution can work at home, but I assume that if it was that good, we'd use it at work.

I have not been reading fecals on my kids, but subsequent to the Ed Clark debacle, I am in the process of collecting samples on the whole crew, as three of them came from him. I am trained to read them, and have a lab at work so I can take them in and do it myself.

Most of the bigger stuff...roundworms, hookworms, whipworms...will show on a 4x. Coccidia can sometimes be seen on 4x if there are a lot of them, or if it's a big species but just to be sure I always read on 10x, and then if I find anything I switch to 40x to confirm. Giardia are difficult to find...the method reputed to be best is zinc sulfate solution with centrifugation, which requires a swinging-arm centrifuge...most places don't have one, but we are lucky enough to have upgraded to one recently.

But yeah...for most of the worms, you can find them on a slide at home if you are experienced at reading them.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Well, sugar solution isn't inferior in the way it operates, but it IS perishable, which is why it's not used professionally. You can keep it in the fridge for a few days, but after that it has to be thrown out and remade.