Veiled Lacking Probiotics

[SpinyFranky]

Most doctors I have dealt with (and even vets) say to give the pill with something tasty so that the child/animal can swallow it easier or swallow it without knowing that it was swallowed.

You said..."while extensive research has not been done to prove that probiotics in yogurt will have an affect on birds, neither has research been done to disprove it"....while this is not from a scientific study, there are an awful lot of sites that say that the probiotic needs to be the right one for the creature involved, including big breeders...so there must be some reason why so many say it...
"What some people do not realize is that not only must a probiotic for birds be alive to effectively work; it also must be comprised of avian-specific bacteria"...
http://www.audreysaviary.com/gpage.html2.html

"Most probiotics are species specific"...
http://www.freewebs.com/englishtrumpeter/superiorbreeders.htm

"However, the microflora of the intestinal tract of the dog and cat differ from those found in people and probiotic organisms appear to be species specific"....
http://pet-nutrition.suite101.com/article.cfm/probiotics_to_treat_diarrhea_in_dogs_and_cats

You said..."our immune system is much more advanced and complex than say a chameleons"...could you please show me something that proves this? I'd love to read about it.

And could you show me some proof of this too..."Where as I would assume chameleon probiotics are mainly in the form of digestive additives to not only break down protein chains, but also aid in their movement towards the stomach lining, Human probiotics fight off pathogens, bacteria, disease, and more."

http://www.keratin.com/am/am007.shtml - It speaks mainly about fish and amphibians - however amphibians are the direct predecessor to reptiles, which precede birds, which precede mammals, which eventually ends with the human species.

from that Link:
"For our purposes we could expect that the vertebrate immune system should develop from the rudimentary in fish to the most complex in ourselves."

"So far, researchers have only identified around 25 types of antigens that fish antibodies will bind to. The human antibody repertoire is able to collectively target thousands of antigens."

"Amphibians have a somewhat improved ability to mount a response to foreign antigens but it is still very limited. Having three different classes of antibody, IgM, IgX and IgY does help improve their chances of defense against infection but it is clear that amphibians have a significant problem mount an antibody response against what are called "thymus dependant antigens". This type of antigen needs to be destroyed by the combined efforts of antibodies and lymphocytes. Although part of the problem is that amphibians have a limited number of T cells, the main problem is a limited antibody repertoire. Most thymus dependant antigens are viral antigens, so amphibians are more susceptible to viral infections than humans."

To answer the second question you asked, as stated in the post itself, I said it was an assumption - and that assumption was made off of information inferred from the link provided. In no way did I claim it to be 100% true or fact.

And for probiotics, until someone publishes something that directly proves there is a definitive yes or no answer to which are used and which are not used according to species, as well as if or if not yogurt is a good source of said probiotics - I will continue to follow my belief system and provide yogurt primarily because they like it, secondly because its a decent source of calcium, and thirdly because POTENTIALLY it could benefit them with pro biotics. These three points justifies its use in my mind, and thats the only mind I really care about.

As for the case of reptiles, specifically dealing with reestablishment of probiotics I would always suggest powder supplementation over yogurt - every time. Yogurt is simply a cheap alternative I would suggest, considering we do not even know if a lack of probiotics is the case in the original posters thread.

 

[kinyonga]

In the link you provided it said..."Unfortunately that is as far as we can go in looking at the ability of different vertebrates to mount an antibody response as so little research has been done on reptiles and birds"...so I will wait for more research results in reptiles. I do know that they have bacteria fighting cells such as phagocytes/monocytes, etc.

 

[SpinyFranky]

In the link you provided it said..."Unfortunately that is as far as we can go in looking at the ability of different vertebrates to mount an antibody response as so little research has been done on reptiles and birds"...so I will wait for more research results in reptiles. I do know that they have bacteria fighting cells such as phagocytes/monocytes, etc.

True

But I did think that the fish being able to deal with 25 pathogens at max, and the human immune system having capability to deal with thousands - that seemed pretty imformative

Lmao.

 

[kinyonga]

Its interesting information...but I would like to hear about chameleons' immune systems just the same.

 

[Zen Reptiles]

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but why start a new one.

Just wanted to add some info to the discussion. I have an adult male panther that was eating on his own but LOSING weight. All of his temperatures and feeding and hydration are excellent, but I was gone for a month and the caretaker didn't clean out the bottom of his cage.

I would imagine some bad bacteria got into him, from the 'septic' environment at the bottom of his cage.

After several weeks, he went from over 100grams to 60grams. Still eating voraciously on his own, and drinking lots of water.

I got a fecal done, and they couldn't find anything wrong but said I should treat with Panacur, which I did. They also mentioned his food wasn't very digested.,..... That's how I found this thread.

So after reading this thread I mixed up some yogurt (just what I had in the fridge, Vanilla flavored ) and mixed 1 tsp of yogurt with 2 tbsp of water, and added the contents of two probiotic supplements that I take.

One has 50 billion cultures per capsule, and has a wide variety of bacteria species, including:

Bifidobacterium bifidum
B. breve
B. longum
Lactobacillus acidophilus
L, rhamnosus
L. casei
L. plantarum
L. lactis
L bulgaricus
L. salivarius

I figured all my bases were covered with this one.

I added Natural Factors 10 Billion, just for good measure, which has only L. rhamnosus, L. acidophilus, and B. bifidum

I gave him .75 ML the first day, to load him up, and I have been giving him .3 ML every day since (for the past 5 days). I put a drop at a time into his mouth with a veterinary 'droplet' syringe.

He went from having completely undigested food in his stools, very light colored, lots of mucous, and poorly formed urates....to normal, dark brown, firm, digested, wonderful chameleon poops!

So! I and he are very happy with the yogurt. I haven't weighed him yet, but he is definitely gaining, is more active, eats quicker, and has one or two bowel movements a day!

 

[msgizmo]

Brock, just to jump in here, very interesting results. How much weight has he gained...over what period of feeding the new pro-biotic? It took about 4-5 weeks to get in this pickle so I wondered how long it took to reverse the problem. Thanks.

 

[Matt Vanilla Gorilla]

Yeast and all kinds of bacteria are found everywhere! Probiotics by definition are micro organisms that are beneficial to have in the lower intestinal tract (them living there prevents bad opportunistic bacteria and yeast from taking over and causing harm). So, there are some bacteria and some yeasts that could be beneficial to some creatures that could be harmful to others (that is the exception to the rule though). Out in the boondocks, on some island somewhere, let's say for instance Madagascar, back in the day before humans lived there, there might not have been people around making and eating yoghurt. But the living creatures there still had probiotic organisms in their intestines. Most probiotic organisms have lactic acid as a byproduct of their own metabolism. Because the vast majority of yoghurt bacteria have lactic acid as a byproduct It is therefore assumed (and it is mostly a accurate assumption) that eating yoghurt is good for most living creatures in order to help reestablish healthy intestinal flora. So, even if the bacteria in yoghurt might not be optimal for chameleon's, it is better than the intestinal void left behind after your chameleon has been treated with antibiotics. A void like this gives opportunity for malignant (bad) bacteria and/r yeast to take over and harm your chameleon! One more thing, Probiotics are not made, they are living creatures!

 

[Carlton]

Yeast and all kinds of bacteria are found everywhere! Probiotics by definition are micro organisms that are beneficial to have in the lower intestinal tract (them living there prevents bad opportunistic bacteria and yeast from taking over and causing harm). So, there are some bacteria and some yeasts that could be beneficial to some creatures that could be harmful to others (that is the exception to the rule though). Out in the boondocks, on some island somewhere, let's say for instance Madagascar, back in the day before humans lived there, there might not have been people around making and eating yoghurt. But the living creatures there still had probiotic organisms in their intestines. Most probiotic organisms have lactic acid as a byproduct of their own metabolism. Because the vast majority of yoghurt bacteria have lactic acid as a byproduct It is therefore assumed (and it is mostly a accurate assumption) that eating yoghurt is good for most living creatures in order to help reestablish healthy intestinal flora. So, even if the bacteria in yoghurt might not be optimal for chameleon's, it is better than the intestinal void left behind after your chameleon has been treated with antibiotics. A void like this gives opportunity for malignant (bad) bacteria and/r yeast to take over and harm your chameleon! One more thing, Probiotics are not made, they are living creatures!

Just a comment about finding partially or undigested material in feces...remember there are parts of insect feeders that are just not digestible. It doesn't surprise me to find leg segments, chitin, parts of wings or shells in a cham's feces. Whenever I've looked closely a a cham's poop I've seen varying amounts of it depending on what they are eating at that time. I'm sure treating a cham with such a broad spectrum drug like Baytril does knock back the gut bacteria, but consider this...they are going to get a dose of new gut flora from their feeders in part because their feeders have them. They all feed on plant material and probably have quite an array of gut flora to handle digestion of cellulose anyway. Using a supplement like Bene-bac may be a bit more useful than yogurt but how much seems to be unclear. I would be more concerned about giving an insectivore a dairy product...they don't have the digestive enzymes to handle it.