Doing your own fecals - Microscope recommendations pls!

[woodsie]

yay...i'd love a tutorial!

I did receive my Celestron Microscope and love it for showing my kids cool stuff (my husband's tooth broke off and we got to look at the decay and stuff....kind of gross but a good tool to teach kids to brush their teeth WELL). So it is definitely good for the homeschool thing but I was really hoping to do fecals on it. Can't wait to hear how it goes Southern!

 

[norseofcourse]

I got a microscope! It's an older one, American Optical "Sixty Spencer" model, and it appears to work well. It has 4 lenses at the bottom, they say 4x, 10x, 43x and 97x (with some kind of oil). I'm guessing the lens at the top is 10x? - any marking it might have had is worn off. It has a light, and knobs to move the slide on the stage both directions. So far the only problem is the knobs are *really* hard to turn - should I oil the toothed rails they move along?

Now I need to get the McMasters kit - I am so excited to be able to do my own fecals this year! I can run them on the ponies, too!

 

[Ponker]

Working on a tutorial...

I am going to do my own fecals. Where can I find your tutorial, please?

 

[Southern by choice]

In the articles section-
I have the links below
the first is an overview of understanding parasites the next two are how to do the Mcmasters method - it is in two parts because you can only do so many pics in a post.

http://www.backyardherds.com/resources/understanding-famacha-fecal-analysis.56/

http://www.backyardherds.com/resources/the-mcmasters-method-fecal-analysis.55/

http://www.backyardherds.com/resources/mcmasters-method-fecal-analysis-part2.57/

 

[Ponker]

@Southern by choice Outstanding!Thank you so much for sharing. I have the equipment except the McMasters slide. I'll be ordering asap.

I don't have goats yet (April this year they're coming!) but I do have sheep. I've read many articles that the fecal testing is fairly universal for livestock and even dogs and cats. It makes perfect economical sense to perform this test yourself.

 

[Southern by choice]

@Southern by choice Outstanding!Thank you so much for sharing. I have the equipment except the McMasters slide. I'll be ordering asap.

I don't have goats yet (April this year they're coming!) but I do have sheep. I've read many articles that the fecal testing is fairly universal for livestock and even dogs and cats. It makes perfect economical sense to perform this test yourself.

Yes, I do use a standard simple float for dogs... McMasters is not applicable. So if you want to do chickens,dogs, cats... then get some regular slides and slide covers.

 

[Hens and Roos]

how long can the homemade sugar solution that is used with the McMasters slide be kept around?

 

[Southern by choice]

It depends... sometimes ours has lasted for a long long time other times it went over quick... it will look kind of cloudy or slimy.
Where you keep it is probably the key. Cool places it lasts longer.

You can make up smaller batches.
Usually when we run fecals we run 10-15 at a time. with 4 slides prepped at once so I can get through them fast.

 

[Hens and Roos]

I keep the solution in a glass jar in the frig and just take out enough for what we are running. Just made a fresh batch since the other had been sitting for several months. I'm lucky if we run a couple samples at a time!