Durability of Coccidia?

[hallenhe]

First off, I'm not looking for shortcuts and I will be cleaning everything. I'm just curious as to how long Coccidia can persist in the absence of a host; whether it has a resting stage that will remain dormant for weeks or months until a lizard/bug/what-have-you chances upon it, or whether it will wither away in a defined period of time. Much thanks for any insight.

 

[jannb]

I have always heard for 6 months.

 

[summoner12]

A steamer and hydrogen peroxide should be used.

 

[hallenhe]

Thanks for the prompt responses; answers my question.

 

[FroggtheCham]

The coccidia itself are easy to kill, peroxide, bleach etc. It's the oocysts that persist; you need intense heat or freeze them to kill them. In the right environment, the oocysts can remain viable for up to a couple years.

 

[ChamOh]

The coccidia itself are easy to kill, peroxide, bleach etc. It's the oocysts that persist; you need intense heat or freeze them to kill them. In the right environment, the oocysts can remain viable for up to a couple years.

the oocysts are the eggs right?

i recently scrubbed down a cage with hydrogen peroxide 40 -- which can be bought at a beauty supply store. This is said to clean up coccidia pretty well. didn't use a steamer, but i also pressure washed it. fecal results will be in on tuesday after a week of treatment.

 

[FroggtheCham]

the oocysts are the eggs right?

i recently scrubbed down a cage with hydrogen peroxide 40 -- which can be bought at a beauty supply store. This is said to clean up coccidia pretty well. didn't use a steamer, but i also pressure washed it. fecal results will be in on tuesday after a week of treatment.

If I remember correctly there are two "stages" with the eggs. One is the not quite infectious yet, needs to move on to the next stage to become infectious. This is generally the egg that is passed in the feces. This is the egg that can remain viable for a long time. Once passed in the ,optimum environment it will continue on to the infectious egg stage, which when ingested implants in the intestine and starts the life cycle over again. Scrub the crap out of it (no pun intended ) If you can't heat the viv, at least you can scrub away as much as you can. My beardie had pinworm and coccidia. I broke down the cage 3 times a week and bleached what I could not get into my dishwasher loaded with bleach. It cleared up fine. The key is getting rid of those eggs.

 

[Jeweledchameleons]

It's the cysts ... they're not "eggs" they contain 4 pairs of infectious bodies in each one.
It's the long lasting (oocyst (life cycle page) that are the problem
These have thick walls around them that resist efforts to kill their contents.

It can be a real problem, that will kill your animals
Here's another flash animation of the basic life cycle on this page


What you have to do is get rid of the internal infection and somehow get the oocysts killed as well. They live up to a year.
Direct household bleach won't do it.
This is made much more complicated by the discovery of multiple species of these little bastards that infect wild African chameleons. So if you have some WC animals that either carried or picked up a few new species while being imported or held by an importer's (reused and unclean) holding cage/bins until they're sold.
You could have several species in a single animals intestines
as well as a dozen possible hybrids roaming around and have to deal with.
It's truly a mess.

All you need is for a insect to crawl around and pick up a oocyst,
one that's eaten infected feces or a contaminated water source etc.
Not to mention to have one transferred from an infected animal (via handling) to a clean one.

Personally, I bleached everything, cleaned it all up, wrapped it all up in plastic,
put everything in storage and waited over a year before starting breeding again.
These things devastated me.

 

[Jonah S]

It sounds like once you have them they are there to stay for a while. Is there any good way to prevent your cham from picking them up? For instance, how would I go about keeping my new baby veiled from those little buggers?

 

[beeze]

It sounds like once you have them they are there to stay for a while. Is there any good way to prevent your cham from picking them up? For instance, how would I go about keeping my new baby veiled from those little buggers?

Don't feed wild caught feeders and sometimes any feeder can carry it.....so get regular fecals on your cham. Also, replace and keep the soil in your plants clean.