The revised approval reduces the withdrawal time from three days before slaughter to zero, which will enable Deccox to be used in the latter stages of growth and also where a flock is thinned during the growing cycle.

“This could offer producers a great opportunity to benefit from a chemical clean up of coccidia in their flocks, without having to be concerned about withdrawal periods”, says Tony Grainger, poultry manager UK and Ireland, of Zoetis.

Deccox is a synthetic (sometimes called a chemical) anticoccidial used as a feed additive in control programmes. Synthetic compounds are routinely used in such programmes, along with different ionophores (monovalent or divalent) and sometimes anticoccidial vaccines, to reduce the chance of resistance developing in the coccidial population.

General advice is not to use the same in-feed anticoccidial for extended periods, to rotate among different classes of ionophores and to rest each product periodically. Use of a synthetic or chemical product once a year is recommended to clean up field strains.

Coccidiosis is caused by microscopic protozoan parasites of the Eimeria genus. Coccidia are resilient and reproduce quickly and in large numbers – just one coccidial oocyst (egg) can produce over 500,000 progeny in less than seven days.

Acute coccidiosis resulting in diarrhoea and mortality can occur but low-level, subclinical coccidiosis is a more common and costly form of the disease seen on poultry farms. Growth rate, feed conversion ratio and flock uniformity suffer. The disease can also predispose birds to other health issues such as dysbacteriosis and necrotic enteritis.

Further Reading

Find out more information on coccidiosis by clicking here.