Toltrazuril vs Ponazuril

[CCT Reptiles]

I was wondering if anybody can share their personal experience with either of these medication for coccidia. I am especially curious if toltrazuril works just as well as pponazuril.

 

[jannb]

Ponazuril is great! I’ve used it since it first came out.

 

[Beman]

I have only used Ponazuril before. @JacksJill may be able to give you some info.

 

[JacksJill]

I have used Ponazuril. It's been a while I will have to look at my records to see if I tried the Toltrazuril or not. If you do a search you will find some info on it's use.

 

[iPardalis]

I was wondering if anybody can share their personal experience with either of these medication for coccidia. I am especially curious if toltrazuril works just as well as pponazuril.

Ponazuril is the metabolite of Toltrazuril so they are theoretically the same drug. The practical difference is in animals that are so compromised that they won't metabolize Toltrazuril very well and the active dose of Ponazuril and its derivatives could be lower than expected at a given dosage. This is actually quite possible given that Coccidia damages an animal's digestive track during its reproductive cycle - it reproduces using the animal's intestinal wall and reduces absorption of nutrients and drugs. That complicates the dosage of both drugs but could be why some people report having better results from Ponazuril. On an animal with an infection that has been caught early, they should be about the same.

In my experience, neither one is very effective in completely eliminating Coccidia. Part of why we give so many successive treatments (usually 3+) is because they aren't very effective drugs to begin with. They are more effective and less detrimental than any alternative I am aware of, but I would assume something like 1 out of 5 animals will need a second or third round of treatment to fully eliminate the infection.