Parasite Management - OSU Seminars (Goats & Sheep) - F.D. notes pg10

[ksalvagno]

You could try North Central SARE. They gave them a grant. Also try http://sheep.osu.edu & http://www.scsrpc.org

I bet a search on the Ohio State website would find some results. Also search on Dr William Shulaw, Dr Jeff McCutcheon and Curt Kline. I would think they should have this study published.

 

[elevan]

Good places to start ksalvagno!

If all else fails, here's the link to my county extension office's info where Jeff McCutheon is at.

 

[elevan]

Installment 3 is tonight...stay tuned for notes late this evening.

 

[elevan]

Seminar 3

Speaker: Dr. William Shulaw - extension vet

Management Tool & Techniques: FAMACHA, FEC, Dewormer Resistance Testing

Concept behind Selective Treatment or Targeted Selective Treatment
*Parasite #s are not equally distributed in a group of animals
~ 20-30% of your animals will harbor most of your worms and are responsible for most of the egg output

Achieving Selective Treatment
*FAMACHA
~Establish need to treat for Haemonchus Contortus (Barberpole worm) ONLY
~Developed in South Africa in response to widespread dewormer resistance

I am not going to go through the notes on how to read and fully use the FAMACHA system as you should find a place to get your training in it.

*By selecting the most heavily infected animals for treatment we can significantly reduce the # of treated animals while still reducing pasture contamination and providing treatment to the animals that need it most.
~This approach should slow the development of resistance to dewormers
~Goats treated at 3, 4, 5
~Non lactating ewes at 4, 5
~Lactating ewes at 3, 4, 5
~All animals with bottle jaw treated

*Note on bottle jaw...refer back to previous notes that true bottle jaw is fluid and gelatinous...so that if you press your thumb into it the indentation will remain for approx 8 seconds (5-10). An abscess or infection will not create an indentation and may feel hard instead.

*Refer back to previous notes for a discussion on the Five Point Check
~Non-barber pole worms cause body condition problems and / or diarrhea BUT DO NOT cause anemia...only the barber pole causes anemia.

*Once trained in FAMACHA you can double check yourself by having a red blood cell count ran
See table below:

FAMACHA Color Hematocrit
Classification Range (%)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 RED >28
2 RED-PINK 23-27
3 PINK 18-22
4 PINK-WHITE 13-17
5 WHITE <12



*Replacement FAMACHA cards can be obtained from the University of Georgia (you must have received training)

*When to begin using FAMACHA in OHIO (and other states with a like climate)
~Parasite life cycle ramps up in May (around planting time)
~Begin scoring animals in May
~IF FAMACHA is the ONLY strategy that you are using it MUST be done at LEAST every 14 days or WEEKLY by mid June
~Helps you reduce the selection pressure of the worm to develop resistance
~Helps you keep costs down (you use less dewormer)
~May be necessary to continue scoring through early September (depending on outdoor temperatures)
~Lambs / kids can be difficult to score (use caution)
*due to size of the eye and their eye lid membrane tends to be paler than that of an adult

*When you have small flocks and limited resources, these are possible options for you
~Utilize neighbor's fields (hay fields, cornfields)
~Cross species rotation
~Reduce stocking rates
~May need to treat everyone at the height of the season (mid-July)

*South African work has shown that culling animals that need excessive treatment can result in increasing parasite resilience in the flock
~Resilience = ability of an animal to withstand a parasite burden and remain reasonably productive
~Resistance = ability of an animal to prevent or suppress a parasite infection (this is an immune response and is usually evident between 6-12 months of age)
~Long term affects of using FAMACHA as a culling tool on overall flock productivity has not been evaluated
*There are other things that you need to look at too (such as litter size)
~Exercising single trait selection could cause you to lose other desirable traits
~Some breeds have been identified as being parasite resistant
*Sheep: katahdin
~BUT a breed by and of itself doesn't mean that all animals will be resistant. It just means that that breed has a greater # of resistant animals.
*Selection for resistance must be an active, on going process for it to be maintained in the flock or in the breed

*Using FAMACHA in LARGE flocks / herds
~Examine 50 out of 300
~If any animal scores 4 or 5 or if FAMACHA 3s exceed 10-20% - examine all animals

*Remember that it will take a couple of weeks for an animal to gain a score back after treatment (move up on the score card)

*Record Keeping - FAMACHA
~Keep some kind of record of your scores so that you can track progress or decline

*Uses of FECs (Quantitative Egg Counts)
~Detecting Dewormer Resistance
*FECRT
*Quick screen after treatment - 1 set of samples is not going to tell you about resistance if only doing a FEC
~Monitoring pasture contamination
~Selection of parasite resistant animals

*Limitations of FECs
~They are estimates only
~Vary from day to day
~Vary due to fecal moisture content - loose stools dilute egg count
~Vary due to feed withholding influences - if doing a before and after treatment test make sure circumstances are the same both times
~Vary due to type of forage (digestibility) - highly digestible food makes less fecal matter which results in less eggs being passed

*FECRT - Fecal Egg Count Reduction Testing
1. Treatment group compared to an untreated control group
2. Comparison of average of groups FECs pre and post treatment
3. Comparison of individual animal FEC pre and post treatment
~At least 12-15 samples are necessary to get a reliable estimate of the egg output of the group (15-20 is better)
~Group FEC should be at least 250-300 epg
*Don't mix lamb & ewes (or does & kids)
~Post treatment sampling timelines
*10-14 days after treating with benzimidazoles or levamisole
*14-17 days after treating with ivermectin

*Fecal Samples
~Best method - invert baggie over your hand (use as a glove), insert finger into rectum and retrieve about 8 berries. Cup hand and turn baggie right side out and close.
~Immediately place in cooler with an ice pack or against an ice pack.
~Keep at refrigerator temps right away and until they arrive at vet or lab
~Do not freeze

*World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology (WAAVP) Guidelines
~Microsoft Exel template
*Uses untreated control group as the comparison group
*Automatically calculates
~Variability of FEC
~Estimated egg count reduction with respect to the control group
~Upper and lower 95% confidence interval of the reduction estimate

*Techniques for resistance testing
~Pre and post treatment testing
*Acceptable but lacks the control group
~It's possible for counts to go down without being because of the drug or to go up and not be the fault of the drug
*Use caution when sampling lactating females or lambs / kids approaching 6 months of age (due to beginning of immunity build up)

*It's important to make sure that the animal gets all of the dose of the drug and that they are not spitting any of the dose out.

*If you want to have one lab double check another it is important to make sure that both labs use the exact same technique.
~You cannot send 2 samples to 2 different labs that use 2 different techniques and expect accurate results.

*Some evidence that Valbazen has an effect on egg hatching (preventing some eggs from hatching)

*Drench Rite Assay or the FECRT should be done every 2 years
~Drench Rite Assay is done at University of Georgia
*You must call to schedule a Drench Rite 706-542-0742

*Additional resources
www.vetslides.com
Recordings of each of these seminars will be sent out and I will let you know where you can go to view them yourself.




Next up will be the Field Day on Saturday. I wish I could take you all but sadly I cannot. I will let you know how the experience goes

 

[redtailgal]

z

 

[elevan]

oooh, this make sooo much more sense now that I went to my workshop. ( I made notes, cuz I wanna be cool like you )

We didnt get as much detail as you are getting, so I am still enjoying your notes! Thanks!

I'm really excited for our field day on Saturday.

 

[ksalvagno]

I will be there on Saturday as well.

There is another class in Wooster on Oct. 14th, details below:

Management Skills For Organic Small Ruminants Workshop is scheduled at
October 14, 2011 from 1 to 5 p.m. at Ohio Agriculture Research and Development
Center in Wooster, Ohio. Sheep and goat producers who are certificated
organic, in transition to being organic or just interested in organic methods
will benefit from attending this event.
>
> This workshop will focus on the management knowledge needed for organic small
ruminant production. Joan M Burke, PhD, Research Animal Scientist, USDA,
Agricultural Research Service from Dale Bumpers Small Farms Research Center in
Arkansas will be one of the featured speakers. Joan has done extensive work in
small ruminant parasite management and organic practices for small ruminants.
Francis Fluharty, PhD, is a Ruminant Nutritionist Researcher at Ohio State
University's Ohio Agriculture Research and Development Center (OARDC) in
Wooster, Ohio. He will share the importance of nutrition on animal growth, as
well as animal welfare concerns. A staff person from the Ohio Ecological Food
and Farm Association (OEFFA) will discuss the new NOP Pasture Rule and the
record keeping associated with organic small ruminant production.
>
> The workshop will be held at the Research Service Building, Room 130 at the
Ohio Agriculture Research and Development Center located at 1680 Madison Ave,
Wooster, OH 44691. The cost for the workshop will be $15.00. This workshop is
sponsored by the Organic Food and Farming Education and Research Program (OFFER)
at OARDC and the Small Farm Institute. Contact Kathy Bielek for more info.

 

[elevan]

What a day! I met ksalvagno...nice lady Got to try lamb for the first time ever...not sure I liked it :/ (DH did though) Got my FAMACHA training and card. And learned some more!

Give me a little while to type up my notes and I'll share what I learned. There were 8 break out sessions but we could only attend 4 (and one of mine was FAMACHA), so you'll get notes on 3 of the sessions from me. I know that ksalvagno attended at least 1 session that I did not and we'll hope she shares her notes on that one

 

[elevan]

Break out session 1 of 3

Forage Chicory in a Parasite Control Program
Speakers: Curt Cline (farmer cooperator), Rory Lewandowski (extension educator) and Dr. Joyce Foster

Why Chicory?
Sesquiterpene lactones may have an anti-parasitic effect
Order of highest content by type of chicory: Forage Feast, Oasis, Puna
High quality feedstuff
Drought tolerant
No problems with disease or pests

Chicory Planting Considerations:
Firm, moist seed bed. Soil prep very important
Broadcast and culipack or drill seed at inch depth (no deeper)
Soil fertility: pH >5.5 (best at 6.5-7.0
Soil P: 20-25ppm
Soil K: 75+ (2xCEC) generally 100-120ppm
Nitrogen: on pure stands apply 50-100#/yr
Seeding Rate:
Pure stand: 6-8#/acre
Mixtures:
chicory 3-4#/acre & red clover 6-8#/acre
chicory 3-4#/acre & white clover 3-4#/acre
Yield: 3-6 ton DM per acre

Lessons Learned:
Can be difficult to establish lots of weed pressure need a plan
Different cultivars have different root structures, SL concentrations and palatability
Frost heaving / hooving may be a problem in pure stands
May be related to soil type and drainage (good drainage needed)
Pure stands respond well to nitrogen
Chicory provided a statistically significant effect on FEC compared to lambs grazing on BMR sudangrass
Effects attributed were not enough to overcome moderate or high worm burdens and chicory could not be counted as an effective stand alone anthelmintic
Proportion of SL concentrations in chicory cultivar variety may be an important consideration
Choice cultivar would probably be a better option for parasite control than Forage Feast (which was used in study). Choice also will not flavor milk.
Puna2=Choice
About Sesquiterpene Lactones
Compounds stay in sheeps rumen for 8 hours
Flavor milk!
Compounds are water dense and water soluble so they can be diluted if the animal is drinking a lot of water
SL concentrations are high in the spring, lower in summer and increase in the fall
Types of SL:
Each cultivar of chicory has a different level of each SL type
Lactucin
increased bitterness and decreased palatability
Deoxylactucin
Lactucopicrin
most bitter and lease palatable
most potent anti-parasitic properties

Chicory and Condensed Tannins
Chicory has a very low level of condensed tannins
Condensed tannins have a higher anti-parasitic effect than SL
Condensed tannins is a whole class of compounds not just one.

 

[elevan]

Break out session 2 of 3

Using Non-Traditional Forages Within a Parasite Control System
Speakers: Jeff McCutheon (Morrow Co Extension Educator) and Dr. Joyce Foster

In this session we were able to view the alternative forages: chicory, rape, and BMR sudangrassas well as the fields of alfalfa, naked oats and clover.

In order to make a clean pasture tillage is required. Without tilling the soil you will have parasites in the form of eggs and larvae.

When creating a clean pasture consider items such as turnips and rape.
*While the host farm planted his rape in June for a fall grazing the heat of summer has caused some problems as well as bug damage to the crop and it hasnt been grazed by the sheep yet. These plants would be best suited (in our area) to be planted in late August for a November-December grazing.

Some concerns with turnips and rape:
*They are very digestiblewhich means that they will go straight through the system if you dont add something to slow it down. Crap hay was suggested. Or you could simply seed something along with it to slow it down. There were enough weeds in the host field that the weeds would take care of the issue.
*If grazing straight there may be an iodine imbalance develop
*Concern that plant compounds could cause anemiahas not been proven in a forage study but the compounds in the plant do have properties which can cause anemia
*You only get one grazing pass

BMR Sudangrass:
*You get multiple grazing passes
*Once it matures it loses quality fast
*A lot of stalk that the animal doesnt really eatand while it will regrow leaves it often regrows them to high, so you may need to cut the stalks to force lower growth

A 2 season option:
Plant corn for summer grazing have animals graze while it is relatively immature (no tassels or cobs)
then replant field with
Oats save yourself money by buying Canadian Feed Oats, this is one time where cheaper is better
Oats will outperform rye during fall growing season here.