Antibiotics for Pet Birds and Fish

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casportpony said:
Be careful, most sites have incorrect dosing information.

Antibiotic doses for poultry are crazy high compared to people. What antibiotics do you have leftover? Let me know and I'll tell you what the poultry dose is.
Click to expand...
We have amoxicillin, Cipro and cephalexin on hand. We keep the latter on hand because our stupid dogs are always trying to see who can get the biggest 'owie' that we have to put them on antibiotics for.

Husband is a retired eye doc so he's in charge of dosing numbers for the birds. He goes by the bird's weight and Rx lists references usually. Which is what he used in his practice. He won't look at any of the 'layman's stuff on line. But he says your advice would be greatly appreciated....me too! Mainly we have used orals on the birds for infected eye wounds.

He doesn't try much any more on any other sicknesses they have. He says he's not used to his patients dying off on him during treatment and chickens sure like to die.
 
microchick said:
We have amoxicillin, Cipro and cephalexin on hand. We keep the latter on hand because our stupid dogs are always trying to see who can get the biggest 'owie' that we have to put them on antibiotics for.
Click to expand...

I believe both amoxicillian and cephalexin have the same dose, 57 mg per pound, or 250 mg per 4.5 pounds.

One 4.5 five pound bird would need to be treated with amoxixillian twice a day for 7-10 days, maybe even 14 days, so one would need no less than 14 capsules to treat for 7 days.
I hope no one has 14 left over capsules.

I think the cipro dose is similar to enrofloxacin (10-15 mg/kg twice a day), but I remember seeing someone say it was 40 mg/kg twice a day.

4.5 pound gets 20.5 - 31 mg, or possibly 82 mg twice a day for 3-5 days

Cipro comes in 500 mg & 750 mg pills, so one or two left over pills could work.
 
microchick said:
Husband is a retired eye doc so he's in charge of dosing numbers for the birds. He goes by the bird's weight and Rx lists references usually. Which is what he used in his practice. He won't look at any of the 'layman's stuff on line. But he says your advice would be greatly appreciated....me too! Mainly we have used orals on the birds for infected eye wounds.
Click to expand...
As a doctor, he might appreciate these. The first two are veterinary textbooks, and I've attached the sixth & seventh editions of Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook, & Essentials of Avian Medicine and Surgery,


Avian Medicine: Principles and Applications​

Clinical Avian Medicine​

 

Attachments

  • Sixth Edition - Plumbs Veterinary Drug Handbook.pdf
    7.9 MB · Views: 17
  • Seventh Edition - Plumbs Veterinary Drug Handbook.pdf
    18.5 MB · Views: 19
  • Exotic Animal Formulary.pdf
    10.2 MB · Views: 26
casportpony said:
I believe both amoxicillian and cephalexin have the same dose, 57 mg per pound, or 250 mg per 4.5 pounds.

One 4.5 five pound bird would need to be treated with amoxixillian twice a day for 7-10 days, maybe even 14 days, so one would need no less than 14 capsules to treat for 7 days.
I hope no one has 14 left over capsules.

I think the cipro dose is similar to enrofloxacin (10-15 mg/kg twice a day), but I remember seeing someone say it was 40 mg/kg twice a day.

4.5 pound gets 20.5 - 31 mg, or possibly 82 mg twice a day for 3-5 days

Cipro comes in 500 mg & 750 mg pills, so one or two left over pills could work.
Click to expand...
He thinks he is close on the amox and ceph to those doses. Didn't know about the Cipro so wants to pass on his thanks for giving him that info.

Ummmm no one has 14 left over capsules? My dear you would be amazed the stashes nurses have. Once heard a nurse I worked with ask a doctor about her sick little boy. What could she give him. He told her the antibiotic and said here let me write you a script for him. She thanked him and said that she had some on hand. He just shook his head and muttered about nurses and their stashes. She just laughed and told him that nurses have stashes because kids get sick over the weekend.

She had a point. I always seem to get sick on Friday afternoon and like my doctor told me recently when I said innocently oh you know how us nurses are about keeping antibiotics around. He just laughed and said all too well. If you don't have them on hand you just get them from Canada.

But seriously, I hope everyone cuts and pastes your dosages to their computer files. IMHO giving chickens antibiotics is a lot like doing CPR on a person. If they are sick enough to need them, getting the dosage in the near 'ballpark' until you can talk to somebody like you, Casport that has the knowledge to help fine tune the numbers, is better than doing nothing to help the bird.

Thanks again. And Merry Christmas!
 

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