Sharing a note from NC State re: dewormers

[Liese]

Hi Everyone, Below is a note that I received back from Dr. Kevin Anderson who heads up the Small Ruminant Dept. at NC State. We had lost a little wether and I had wanted his opinion on the dewormers I have been using since several people via the Internet had indicated that those dewormers weren't effective - so I began to doubt our experiences and understanding as to determining effectiveness. Perhap you might find what he has to say interesting.


Liese:

Sorry to hear you lost a goat. Widespread resistance has been observed

in goats in SE in general for fenbendazole, albendazole and ivermectin.

We have seen the same pattern in NC. A publication from 2003 was based

upon goat herds in SC and GA and found widespread resistance to
albendazole and ivermectin.

Whether or not the parasites in your particular animals are resistant
to
these drugs depends upon the prior exposure of the parasites to the
drugs. People ask me: "What should I deworm with? What will work in
my herd?" The honest answer is: "I don't know." There are only about

3 ways to know whether a particular drug will work in a particular
herd: 1. Just plain old simple past experience that it seems to be
working; 2. Sending off for a "larval development assay," which costs
a
couple of hundred dollars and is only done at a lab or 2 in the
country;
or 3. Doing an actual testing of the drug in several animals.
Basically, you collect fecal samples on several animals on day 1,
determine level of eggs per gram (epg) of feces, deworm the animals and

then test them 14 days later. If the post-deworming epg is very low
and
amounts to a 90-95% reduction in eggs, then the drug works. If it is
less than that, then there is some resistance. Looking at the eyelids
is another way to estimate the presence of the barber worm, Haemonchus

contortus (but only for this parasite). Since H. contortus sucks
blood, the animals will get pale when they have a heavy burden of
blood-sucking H. contortus. So, you could monitor response some in
that
way.

So, what does that leave you with for a conclusion? If you are using
ivermectin and/or albendazole and you think they are working, well,
then
you can continue. If you don't know, then I would be cautious. It
might be better to use one of the other drugs. As you see, it gets a
little complicated. Not something that is covered well over the
internet."

The letter went on but was covering other questions. So, given what he outlines I'm planning to run before and after fecal tests here at home when thru eyelid checks ( a daily routine on a random goat or sheep or 2) we begin to see changes. Usually we're running random fecal tests to check for trends & catch increases, if any. At this time, after much reflection, we believe that for us Ivermectin is still viable but doing before and after tests will tell us for sure! Best to all.

[Jim S.]

The worst thing about wormers is that there is so much misinformation out there. Lots of it comes from the companies themselves, and the ag studies they sponsor.

In TN, the ag universities have declared ivermectin is no longer effective, yet I use it on my farm and have for 17 years.

The response you got is pretty level-headed, I think. Fecals and FAMACHA are how you find out what works and what doesn't.

Whether something you find that works will continue to work on your farm is up to you. If you worm in an irresponsible manner, it will cease to work. Please study up on how to worm you animals and NOT spread resistance. There's lots on the Net about it. Because like it or not, we are raising two crops -- the goats, and the worms. And we want stronger genetics in the goats, but not the worms.

To that end, cull your goats that seem to always be getting dragged down by worms. You'll eventually wind up with a highly worm-tolerant herd, which is good for you in terms of lower labor inputs and wormer expenses, and for keeping your worm populations from becoming resistant.

[Bearfootfarm]

http://www.pbsanimalhealth.com/cgi-l...html?E+scstore

Here's a wormer that works great for me, and very few people ever mention it here.

It's safe, effective, and inexpensive. It comes as a dry powder that you mix with water, so you can somewhat control the strength vs volume if you have a scale accurate enough to measure it. That way you don't have to mix an entire package if you just have a few animals to treat

[Jim S.]

That's levamisole. It has been mentioned here before.

Read all about it...

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/an_sci/exte...t/MGWormer.htm