Chins and cryptosporidium

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tunes

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I am writing in hopes of asking the vet a question.
I m wondering about chins and cryptosporidium.
Any information they can give on the subject would be great!


From everything that I have read about cryptosporidium in chins, it is an opportunistic infection that usually is diagnosed secondary to something else going on. Usually, if it is a herd problem, there is something wrong with the husbandry such as feed, air quality, temperature, etc. If it is an individual animal diagnosis, then there is probably another primary disease occurring in that animal or it can be from just plain old stress.

Most of the common cases of crypto are with pet store chins and I think this is caused by what we term "shipping fever" which is really any disease that would normally be cured by a healthy animal's immune system, but the body doesn't respond the way it should because of stress on the systems.

It can be treated with an antibiotic called Metronidazole (I know this well because my very good friend contracted crypto in vet school from doing necropsies on sick cows - yuck!). You have to be careful with Metronidazole in chins though because toxicity can occur. Azithromycin is used in rabbits, but I have never used it in a chin. Steam cleaning the environment is a good way to clear it, but there are also some disinfectants that are approved - I just can't remember them right now...

Let me know if there are any other specific questions about cryptosporidium. Oh - the other thing, no reports of chins transmitting crypto to people (unlike cows) so no one should worry about that!

If you have follow up questions regarding this topic, please send them to me and I will forward them on to our vet. Thank you.
 
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