Prevention and control of coccidiosis in goats with decoquinate.

Decoquinate was evaluated as a coccidiostat in domestic goats. Fifty goats less than 4 months of age were assigned to 5 groups (pens) of 10 goats each and were treated for 87 days with 0 (control), 0.3, 0.5, 1.0, or 4.0 mg of decoquinate in feed/kg of body weight. Goats were inoculated orally weight. Goats were inoculated orally with 30,000 oocysts, mainly Eimeria christenseni (74%) and E ninakohlyakimovae (20%) on day 19. Nontreated goats developed profuse watery diarrhea and tenesmus and gained weight poorly; 2 died. Treated goats did not develop clinical coccidiosis and gained significantly more weight (P less than 0.05), regardless of the dose used. Treated goats also had significantly fewer (P less than 0.05) oocysts in feces than did nontreated controls. Oocyst numbers were inversely related to dose; a more rapid decrease in oocyst numbers occurred as the dose was increased. At the doses used, decoquinate was safe in goats and was an effective drug for the prevention of clinical coccidiosis.