Articles

Livestock and internal parasites:

A word about fecal exams: Although I do have a background in veterinary medicine, I really believe that indiscriminate use of wormers is causing us all a lot of extra work. I can't see the logic of using a wormer and not checking to see if it is doing what you purchased it for. I'm talking about your basic fecal exam using a microscope. It's really not that hard to learn and not expensive at all, especially when you consider how much time and trouble we spend on worming our animals. I have done fecal exams before and after worming an animal I have found that some of our most popular wormers have NO effect at all on the parasite load. None! But how would one know this if they don't do a fecal exam to find out? I realize that this may be impractical for a large farm, but even then it's not hard to pick up a few fresh goat berries and test them, or get them tested by your vet. Even if you do just a few animals, you will soon know if the wormer you are using is ineffective on your variety of parasites. Using a wormer without the knowledge of its effectiveness is helping us to develop some really tough parasite strains which will be resistant to most everything we can throw at them. My equipment consist of an old microscope I purchased off EBAY and some Epsom salt solution. It cost me $50-$60 bucks at the most. There are several websites that offer instructions on how to do this. I'll be glad to help if I can.

A word about the eyelid test for parasites: If this is all you can do, then by all means do it. But it seems to me one would prefer to treat an animal BEFORE it has a parasite load large enough to cause anemia. That's what this test is all about, doing a simple visual for pale eyelids for an anemic animal. I would rather catch a problem early on, however it sure does not hurt to do both. I try to look at eyelids every now and then too.