Dose rate for Baycox toltrazuril? Cocci

Does anyone know the dosage rate for rabbits for Baycox Toltrazuril? Dana Krempels (Phd Vet medicine house rabbit society) says that she treats with 20mg/kg toltrazuril. But the Medirabbit site says 2.5 to 5mg/kg. That's a big difference.

Has anyone here used it? What dosage did you use.

Deleted, as Jane has already come along :thumb:

I wonder if this is another area where there is still debate then, much like metacam dose. Here's what was said at the rwa conference in 2009 and this was a study by Sharon Redrobe on the efficacy at different doses, and this suggests 2.5-5 mg/kg with the comment that vets had stopped using baycox because they were seeing side effects, but she believed this was due to an early error in converting to mg/kg meaning that bunnies were getting too much. Like I say this was 2009 though so it's possible that it has changed (post 91 below).

http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/s...bruary-Nottingham/page3&highlight=Toltrazuril

Well, I did talk to someone who sells the Baycox. The instructions she gives for rabbits is 20mg/kg. I asked her if she had any customers complain of side effects with that dosage and she said no, and she had sold it to hundreds of customers and had no complaints, and she also said she had treated her own rabbits with that dosage and it worked really well. Also, Ph.d Dana Krempel said they use an even higher dose, 50mg/kg but I believe she uses the Marquis Ponazuril which when I look it up is the "metabolite" of toltrazuril. Perhaps the Marquis has something different about it that makes it safe at a higher dose. Dana also said that when they used the toltrazuril at the lower dose 20mg/kg on a group of rabbits it did not work, but when they upped the dose to 50mg/kg the parasite died in 5 days on a test group.

I also read what Dr. Sharon Redrobe said about doses over 2.5 - 5mg/kg were an overdose, and may have been a mistake people made by reading the water conversion. But after reading all of this I'm still confused. It seems like for the Baycox, for all other animals, goats, pigs, cats, chickens the instructions are to dose with 20mg/kg, so if that is what it takes to kill the coccidiosis parasite in all those other animals, why would such a small dose 2.5 to 5mg/kg work on rabbits?

This thread has some info about toltrazuril, including some input from a vet that has used it to treat rabbits.
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?261909-Coccidiosis-All-Rabbit-Owners-Should-be-Aware-of-This

You have to keep in mind that Dana Krempels is using Ponzuril at that dosage, not toltrazuril, as Ponzuril is what is available in the US. And even though they are a related drug, I don't know that you can fairly compare their dosages, without some sort of scientific study or other drug info saying that they have a comparable action at an equal dosage. It could be with ponzuril being a metabolite, that it requires a higher dosage to have an equal effect to the toltrazuril.

As for the dosages for other animals, what is the method of administration? I know in poultry that it is put in their water, so maybe this is the difference for the rabbit dosage, as rabbits will be given it by direct oral administration.

Personally, with the lower dosage coming from rabbit resources, as well as a scientific study having been done showing it's effectiveness at the lower dose, that is the dosing I would follow, unless it was proven to me ineffective.

Max1 said:

Does anyone know the dosage rate for rabbits for Baycox Toltrazuril? Dana Krempels (Phd Vet medicine house rabbit society) says that she treats with 20mg/kg toltrazuril. But the Medirabbit site says 2.5 to 5mg/kg. That's a big difference.

Has anyone here used it? What dosage did you use.

Click to expand...

If this were me, I would write to Dana and ask her to clarify. She's one of the best sources of info on dosage/ experience I have ever met

Jbun said:

This thread has some info about toltrazuril, including some input from a vet that has used it to treat rabbits.
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/showthread.php?261909-Coccidiosis-All-Rabbit-Owners-Should-be-Aware-of-This

You have to keep in mind that Dana Krempels is using Ponzuril at that dosage, not toltrazuril, as Ponzuril is what is available in the US. And even though they are a related drug, I don't know that you can fairly compare their dosages, without some sort of scientific study or other drug info saying that they have a comparable action at an equal dosage. It could be with ponzuril being a metabolite, that it requires a higher dosage to have an equal effect to the toltrazuril.

As for the dosages for other animals, what is the method of administration? I know in poultry that it is put in their water, so maybe this is the difference for the rabbit dosage, as rabbits will be given it by direct oral administration.

Personally, with the lower dosage coming from rabbit resources, as well as a scientific study having been done showing it's effectiveness at the lower dose, that is the dosing I would follow, unless it was proven to me ineffective.

Click to expand...

Just for info, in goats, the dose for toltrazuril is 20mg/kg (4ml/10kg) given once orally. I had to treat my goat kid for cocci last year, thankfully she made a full recovery :thumb:

MightyMax said:

If this were me, I would write to Dana and ask her to clarify. She's one of the best sources of info on dosage/ experience I have ever met

Click to expand...

I did email her, she in one group of rabbits they tried 20mg/kg and it did not kill off the parasite so they upped the dose ot 50mg/kg and it did kill off the parasite.

Jbun
This thread has some info about toltrazuril, including some input from a vet that has used it to treat rabbits.
http://forums.rabbitrehome.org.uk/sh...-Aware-of-This

You have to keep in mind that Dana Krempels is using Ponzuril at that dosage, not toltrazuril, as Ponzuril is what is available in the US. And even though they are a related drug, I don't know that you can fairly compare their dosages, without some sort of scientific study or other drug info saying that they have a comparable action at an equal dosage. It could be with ponzuril being a metabolite, that it requires a higher dosage to have an equal effect to the toltrazuril.

As for the dosages for other animals, what is the method of administration? I know in poultry that it is put in their water, so maybe this is the difference for the rabbit dosage, as rabbits will be given it by direct oral administration.

Personally, with the lower dosage coming from rabbit resources, as well as a scientific study having been done showing it's effectiveness at the lower dose, that is the dosing I would follow, unless it was proven to me ineffective.

Click to expand...

Dana Krempel found the 20mg/kg to be ineffective and raised it to 50mg/kg. Also, when I look up the dose rates for Baycox for other animals its 20mg/kg. So, those bits of info lead me to wonder if 2.5-5kg would be ineffective.

Also, if there is a difference between different brands of toltrazuril, the Marquis and the Baycox, to me it doesn't explain the huge differences in the recommended dose rates. The dose rates I am finding from some experts are 4, 8, and 10 times higher than the 2.5-5mg/kg dose rate. I wouldn't want to overdose a rabbit, but also wouldn't want to underdose incase it would just build resistance in the parasite.

I don't know, I still want more info. The scientific study I found that that supports the lower dosage seems to be the same one that is quoted in the Vet medicine books, so only one source based on one scientific study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20729515?
In that study 2.5mg-5mg was used but in the end of the abstract it says "Oocyst counts began to rise again in the days after treatment ceased" So doesn't seem to have eradicated the parasite.

So, with all that info, I think I'm leaning toward the 20mg/kg dosage rate.

My understanding was that toltrazuril does not completely eradicate the parasite, it helps to reduce the loading of the parasite in the body so that the rabbit's immune system can get on top of the infection and eradicate it, itself.

Have you clarified whether Dana is using toltrazuril or, as someone asked earlier, ponazuril? They are related, but they are different drugs, so it is very important to know exactly which is being used at what dose rate, as you can't extrapolate from one to the other. And have you clarified the route of administration? I.e. Is that 20mg/kg delivered orally via syringe, or put into water, for instance? As that will also have a bearing on how the correct dose gets to where it is needed.

You similarly can't extrapolate dose rates from one species to another. Rabbits can safely have metacam at a rate about 10 times higher than a cat, for instance. If you gave the same dose per kg to a cat, you would probably kill it. Their bodies work in completely different ways, drugs get absorbed and processed differently and at different speeds so although the same concentration might be needed to kill the parasite in a test tube, the way and timing to get that amount of drug to the infection will vary wildly by species. Baytril is another example - cat dose is a maximum of 5mg/kg, rabbits need up to 20 mg/kg to get the same effective treatment amount.

I genuinely don't know the answer to this one, it's very frustrating to have such wildly conflicting information - but I would just make very, very sure that Dana is talking about the exact same drug (the exact same chemical make up, not just name) before taking her word for anything...they use Benadryl in the US for animals too, but US Benadryl is an entirely different drug to UK Benadryl. You just have to be so careful to ensure you are actually comparing like with like. Good luck x x