The goal of NISP is to do exactly what the name states. Their goal is to use performance based data to provide information to producers to help them to maximize their flock’s performance and profit. The way they do this is by collecting all sorts of data from thousands of sheep raised by different producers all over the country. This data is put into a complicated database where EBV’s for individual animals are produced.

EBV’s aren’t static. They can and will change as new data and new animals are added to the database. They also come with an accuracy rating. The more relatives a sheep has recorded, the more accurate the EBV’s are expected to be. A given animal is essentially ranked based on how it performs as compared to the other animals in the database.

While the EBV’s are estimates, you can learn more about the potential of an animal from this data than you can by looking at them standing out in a field.

This is particularly true for rams since you can’t see how much milk he produces or if he’s a good mother. It has been proven that by using performance based data rather than visual appearance you can make genetic gains faster.

We humans have a tendency to be attracted to the biggest fattest looking lamb out in the field. Unfortunately, while this one might look amazing, it is rarely the best performing lamb in the flock. This lamb is usually a single born from a slacker mother. By selecting the biggest nicest looking lamb, you might actually be selecting against important traits like prolificacy and ewe efficiency. EBV data helps us avoid these biases.

Note, we are going to be referring to Katahdins throughout this article as that is what we breed. Katahdin breeders have relied heavily on EBV’s. They have made remarkable performance advances as a result. However, NSIP is not Katahdin specific. It has databases for a variety of sheep breeds, so be sure to check if your breed participates.

Data is collected on a whole slew of different performance traits.

Data collected ranges from things like birth weight and number of lambs born to fecal egg count scores to carcass and wool qualities. A complete list of the traits and descriptions can be found on the NSIP website. Each animal is assigned a score for each and every one of those traits. They are also assigned an overall score. This score is the hair index for Katahdins. A sheep with a very high hair index is a very good overall sheep.

Depending on your breeding goals you can select stock that has high scores for individual traits you wish to improve or just select for a high hair index. If there happens to be a trait your flock is very deficient in, it can be highly advantageous to select for a ram with a very high score in that trait. If you are generally satisfied with flock performance and have no traits you’re desperate to improve you might opt to select a high hair index ram. Not sure what your breeding goals are? You can refer back to our article on selecting breeding stock for some basic guidelines.

EBV’s offer a wealth of information.

The image above is a screen shot of example EBV’s from a ewe we recently purchased. You can see her US Hair Index is above the 90th percentile. She is a very good overall sheep, and would generally be an excellent choice. BUT, no sheep is perfect or the right answer to every problem. Even with a hair index that high she still scored in the 5th percentile for weaning fecal egg count (WFEC), and below average for birth weight (BWT) and post weaning fecal egg count (PFEC). If your flock desperately needed better parasite resistance, she would be a bad choice.

EBV’s are a tool.

Keep this in mind as you learn. Everyone uses this data a little differently. There is no right or wrong thing to select for. It is all dependent upon your flock and your goals. That being said, generally speaking you’d want to purchase stock that is better than average at most or all the traits. You don’t want to be using a ram that performs more poorly than the breed average. Otherwise, he will not be improving your flock like he should be.

You can determine how a given sheep compares to the average by comparing its score for a given trait to the percentile reports. A sheep with a trait that scores less than the 50^th percentile is performing worse than average for that trait. Keep in mind though that there is no such thing as a perfect sheep, and you can’t improve everything all at once. Focus on selecting for a high score in what you deem the most important traits while minimizing loss in other traits.

EBV’s are a lot of data to try to wrap your head around. The NSIP website has a variety of excellent information on how to use their data effectively. If you are interested in employing EBV’s in your flock, we would encourage you to dig into the system in more depth as this is outside the scope of this article.

Next time we are going to be discussion how to select a Katahdin for milking, so don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter to have that delivered directly to your inbox!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Use EBV’s To Improve Your Flock’s Performance first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

It doesn’t matter how healthy you think the new animals are or how reputable the breeder. You should always quarantine new animals up on arrival. This is particularly true if you had him shipped and he was exposed to other animals on his journey. You should also quarantine anything that has gone off farm (like to a show or fair) and returned. Yes, quarantining a new animal takes extra effort, but it can potentially save you a lot of headache and expense in the long run.

Quarantining new animals goes hand in hand with farm bio-security.

Every farm, no matter how small, should have a bio-security plan in place. If you don’t have one, we would encourage you to spend some time doing research. Think about how to best protect your animals (and subsequently your profitability).

Of course, the best way to avoid introducing a disease into your flock is to keep a closed flock. A closed flock is a flock that has no external animals coming into it. Unfortunately for most farms, keeping a closed flock is not practical. New rams will need to be brought in occasionally to introduce new genetic material. However, doing your best to minimize the number of animals you bring in can help to protect your flock. You should also keep in mind that goats share many of the same diseases with sheep, and cows and other animals can sometimes also share diseases. They should also be quarantined accordingly.

It is never a good idea to purchase animals from a flock that shows any signs of disease whatsoever

Hopefully in the process of selecting new sheep, you took our previous advice. You did your research, made time for observation, and asked a lot of questions about flock health. Most of the time you can avoid bringing home most diseases by carefully inspecting the animals and farm they come from prior to purchase. Nonetheless, a seemingly healthy animal can sometimes be harboring a disease. Thus, it is important to treat every new animal as if it is contagious.

When you bring home new sheep, they should go in a quarantine pen where they have no contact with your flock. They should be housed as far away as possible. They shouldn’t share feeders, water troughs, or fence lines. You should feed them last so as not to expose your flock via your clothing or shoes. Additionally, the quarantine area should either be able to be sterilized or left empty for an extended time after use. This is just in case a contagious disease is brought in.

Sheep should be quarantined for a minimum of 2 weeks, but ideally for 30 days or even longer if practical. You need to give time for diseases to appear, and this also gives you time to do any desired testing/treatments. There is a laundry list of contagious diseases you could potentially be introducing onto your farm with new breeding stock. Some examples of these diseases include Campylobacter (vibrio), Chlamydia (EAE), ringworm, Foot rot, Johne’s Disease, liver flukes, OPP, Pink eye, Soremouth and dewormer resistant parasites. Some of these diseases are best found with blood testing rather than observation alone.

Foot rot might be one of the most commonly introduced contagious diseases.

Foot rot is extremely contagious, can sneak onto your farm particularly on young animals in dry conditions. Foot rot is a very serious animal welfare issue which can cause the performance of your flock to suffer. Plus, once established in your flock it can be very difficult, time consuming and expensive to eradicate. It is a disease where an ounce of prevention is indeed worth more than a pound of cure.

While in quarantine all the new sheep should have their feet trimmed and inspected for any signs of foot rot or abnormalities. It is also our preference to also expose the animals to wet muddy conditions if at all possible, prior to releasing them into our flock. This is because foot rot typically appears under wet conditions. Many farms choose to make the assumption that every new animal has foot rot and treats them accordingly.

Dewormer resistance is also something you’re more likely to encounter than not.

It is a good idea to triple deworm and do fecal egg count (FEC) tests on incoming sheep in an effort to avoid introducing any more dewormer resistant worms than absolutely necessary. The goal is to get your new sheep to have a FEC of 0 or as close to it as possible prior to letting them on your pastures. It can also be beneficial to discuss deworming practices and any known resistance existing on the farm you are purchasing lambs from.

In addition, something people sometimes don’t think about is the risk humans visiting from other farms bring to the flock. It is a good idea to ‘quarantine’ people coming onto your farm. Diseases can sometimes be transmitted on clothing, shoes and even car tires. It is a good idea to ask folks coming onto your farm to wear clean clothes, booties, or to walk through a foot bath prior to coming onto your farm. You should follow the same procedure yourself any time you have been to another farm or to a facility, like fair grounds, where sheep and goats are housed.

We hope this has prompted you to think about you handle incoming animals and people on your farm before you get into trouble. If you would like to read more articles about improving your flock and keeping your animals healthy, please sign up for our newsletter!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post Quarantine: An Important Protection For Your Sheep first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 1-The #1 Killer Of Small Ruminants

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 2-Controlling Worms Without Dewormer

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 3-How To Properly Deworm

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 4-Breeding Parasite Resistant Sheep

Throughout our series on barber pole worms, we have mentioned several times that fecal egg counts (FEC) can be a very useful tool in a parasite management program. This is particularly true when breeding for parasite resistance.

Many people think that it is too expensive to use fecal egg counts regularly because you have to send samples to a lab or to your vet for analysis. Typically, this costs $10-25 per sample, which can add up pretty quickly. Fortunately, with a basic microscope and a fecal egg count slide kit, almost anyone can learn to do FEC at home. If you do more than a few FEC in a year, the investment in supplies to do FEC at home will quickly pay for themselves.

Doing FEC at home has the added bonus of giving you immediate results. Fecal egg counts are often used as diagnostic tools on a sick animal. You might have to wait for a couple days to hear from the the vet that your sheep has coccidia or parasites. If you do the test yourself, you will know 10 minutes later what is in your animal’s feces.

You need a few basic supplies

• Microscope that has 100x (10x lens) magnification. Worm eggs are large, so inexpensive student microscopes work perfectly.

• Paracount-EPG kit with the green grid lines on the slides.

• A container for smashing manure pellets in

• Craft sticks (or some other kind of small spoon you can crush and scoop manure pellets with)

• Disposable gloves

• Flotation solution. You can purchase a ready made flotation solution or can make a simple one yourself.

How to make your own flotation solution

We use a sugar solution. It consists of 1 lb of sugar dissolved in 12 oz of water. You will need to heat up the water for the sugar to fully dissolve. Once the sugar is dissolved, allow it to cool and refrigerate.

Alternatively, you can make an Epsom salt solution. To do this, put some Epsom salt in a jar. Fill the jar about 2/3 full of water. Shake or stir it until the salt dissolves. Add more salt, and repeat. Continue doing this periodically over 24 hours until you have a saturated solution evidenced by a layer of salt in the bottom that will not dissolve. You can then pour off (and save) the liquid leaving behind the undissolved salt. The liquid is your flotation solution. The remaining salt can be reused to make more flotation solution or disposed of.

Before we get started it is important to note

There are various ways to perform fecal analysis on animals. For animals like sheep and goats that tend to have high worm counts, the modified McMaster egg counting technique is preferred. You can use other methods if you choose, but this one is ideal.

Regardless of what method you chose to use, it is important to be consistent. Use the same technique, and the same flotation solution every time. You cannot compare results from your vet or a lab against your results, or the results of 2 different counting methods to each other. This is particularly true if a simple fecal flotation is performed. This method will tell you what species of eggs are present but will provide no useful information about how many worms are present.

Different FEC methods count eggs differently so results are relative and only comparable to other results obtained from the same test method. For example, the same fecal sample may show 1000 epg counted one way and only 500 epg counted using a different method. It is not so much the exact number that matters as being able to compare that number to previous or future FEC tests.

How to perform modified McMaster egg count.

Before we actually start working through the procedures, it is a good idea to take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with what some common parasite eggs look like. There are plenty of picture references for small ruminant parasites on the internet.

Then, you need to go gather poop! Many worm eggs hatch very quickly, so you will need to obtain a fresh sample. To do this, put on one of the disposable gloves. Stick one or 2 fingers into their rectum and carefully pull out some manure into your hand. Invert the glove off of your hand so that you have your manure in a glove bag. If you are doing multiple samples it is a good idea to write the sheep’s name/number on the glove.

You will need to either use or refrigerate your samples in under 30 minutes from collection. If you use old manure, or allow your samples to sit out at room temperature, most likely the worm eggs will have already hatched into larvae. Once they become larvae you can no longer see them on your test and you will get inaccurate results.

Once you have your samples collected, it is a good idea to put all but 1 sample in the refrigerator.

Next we will need to set up your microscope and prepare the manure for analysis

Set up your microscope, and make sure it is set to magnify 100x and get your Paracount-EPG kit out.

Dump the manure out into your large container and smash up all the pellets into little pieces. The better you do this, the easier the next steps will be.

Then take one of the large vials in your kit and fill it with flotation solution up to the ‘flotation solution’ line. Look closely at your vial before starting. It has a different line for horses than it does for sheep and goats.

Add crushed manure until you reach the fill line. Stir it vigorously until all of the manure is dissolved into a uniform brown liquid.

After you finish stirring, immediately use one of the syringes included in the kit suck up your solution. Carefully inject it into one of the chambers in the slide. Empty the syringe back into the vial and suck up a new syringe full for the other chamber of the slide. Remember to draw 2 samples from your vial. One for each chamber.

If you wish to redo your egg count on a given sample, be sure to give the manure solution a good stir before using it again. It is a flotation solution, so the eggs will all work their way to the surface, and you will not get accurate results without re-stirring the solution.

On to the microscope!

Here you are simply going to put your slide on the microscope and count the number of eggs within the grids. To do this focus your microscope on one of the green grid lines until the line is clear. Then find a corner of one of your grids. Carefully work your way up and down the grid tallying all of the eggs. Do not count eggs outside of the grids. Keep track of each different kind of egg separately.

Once you have finished with the first grid, repeat the process for the second one.

Take your time and be patient with yourself. Keep scrolling through your slide. Most likely you will eventually see a barber pole worm egg. Once you have seen a few of them, and you know what you are looking for they will become very easy to spot.

At first you might find some artifacts confusing

It may take a little practice to pick out your worm eggs from all the other artifacts. Things you might find under your microscope include not only parasite eggs, but also many other strange looking thing.

You will see lots of air bubbles. These are probably one of the first things you will see that you might think are parasite eggs. They are not. Air bubbles look like large black doughnuts. They are everywhere, and are super obvious once you know what they are. Ignore them.

You will see all sorts of odd looking shapes and debris. Most of them are part of plants cells and cell walls. You can tell this sort of thing apart from your worm eggs, because worm eggs are very consistent in size and shape, this stuff usually isn’t.

You might see pollen. It is a little trickier than most plant debris. It is extremely uniform and looks a lot like it might be some kind of egg, but it isn’t. If you aren’t certain, you can always do an internet search for pollen under the microscope to see what various pollen grains might look like.

Lastly, in addition to the various worm eggs, you may see coccidia.

It is a normal inhabitant of your sheep’s gut. If the animal is healthy and does not seem ill, it is not of concern. However, it is also capable of being a pathogen, particularly in lambs, where it can cause anemia like the barberpole worm. If you are looking at manure from an anemic sheep with a lot of diarrhea, and see a lot of coccidia, you will likely need to treat your lamb with a coccidiostat rather than (or in addition to) a dewormer.

Calculating your eggs per gram

Now you will need to do some math to determine the number of eggs per gram (EPG). This is the FEC count information you are seeking.

First add the number of eggs for each grid together to get a total. Do this for each kind of egg separately. If you used sheep/goat line on your vial, then you will need to multiply the number of worm eggs you counted by 50. If you used the horse line on the vial you will need to use a multiplier of 25. So, if you counted 1 barber pole worm egg, your EPG is 50 (1 x 50 = 50), if you counted 27 barberpole worm eggs it is 1350 EPG (27 x 50 = 1350).

The last step is to carefully wash and dry your tools. It is best to do this promptly before your manure solution has a chance to dry onto anything. Be gentle when washing the slides and vial. The grid lines and writing are ink and can be scrubbed off. Usually a thorough rinse under running water is sufficient to clean the slide chambers. You can then shake out the water and pat them dry on a clean cloth or paper towel.

What to do with this information

Fecal egg counts provide you valuable information about what parasites are present and in what numbers. Most of the time barber pole worms are the main worm of concern. Lower levels of most other worms typically do not reach dangerous thresholds before barberpole worms do.

There is no magic FEC number that tells you whether you should or shouldn’t deworm your animal. You have to use tools like FAMACHA and body condition scoring for that. However, a FEC can confirm your diagnosis. It can tell you that yes, that anemic animal is dying of barber pole worms, or yes that sheep that you can’t put weight on is loaded with brown stomach worms. It is also a valuable tool that you can use to select for parasite resistance, to track parasite trends in your flock, or even to test the effectiveness of your dewormer.

Doing your own fecal egg count reduction tests

Doing your own dewormer effectiveness checks can be quite useful in the current era of dewormer resistance. This dewormer effectiveness check is called a fecal egg count reduction test. To do a fecal egg count reduction test, take a FEC on your animals. Then deworm them. Repeat your FEC again 10-14 days after deworming them.

FEC reduction tests are expressed in percents. Divide your pre-deworming FEC by your post-deworming FEC, subtract it from 1 and multiply by 100 to get this percentage. For example, if I had a sheep with a pre-deworming FEC of 6540 EPG, and 400 EPG post deworming, what is my FEC reduction? Divide: 400 / 6540 = 0.0611 Subtract: 1 – 0.061 = 0.09389 Multiply: 0.09389 x 100 = 93.89% reduction. Not great, but could be worse.

In a perfect world the 10-14 day egg count would be 0 or a 100% reduction. If you get less than an 80% reduction then you very likely are dealing with some significant parasite resistance problems. Once you get down towards 50% you are looking at a complete failure of your dewormer.

We hope with this information has provided you with a new valuable tool. You are now ready to get started doing your own fecal egg counts!

If you are interested in reading more articles like this one, please sign up for our newsletter to get the next one delivered to your inbox!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Do A Fecal Egg Count At Home first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 1-The #1 Killer Of Small Ruminants

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 2-Controlling Worms Without Dewormer

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 3-How To Properly Deworm

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 5-How To Do a Fecal Egg Count

Looking to breed a parasite resistant sheep?

You probably know just how important it is that we breed out our reliance on chemical dewormers. Thankfully, breeding for parasite resistance is something that is well within the abilities of every small ruminant owner. That is if (and only if) you are willing to keep good records and cull animals that should not be bred.

Record keeping and culling is a must, even if you originally purchased parasite resistant stock. Parasite resistance is something that is relatively easy to select for. Conversely, parasite resistance is something that can easily be bred out if you are not actively selecting for it. After all a parasite resistant sheep and a susceptible sheep might look and perform identically if we deworm all our animals frequently

Where do we start?

First and foremost, buy the best ram you can afford. It is much cheaper in the long run to buy a good quality ram to improve your flock than to work your way up from the bottom. At this point in time, there are many breeders out there who are seriously selecting their flocks for parasite resistance.

Before you purchase the ram ask them for their records and proof of their parasite resistance. If the farmer is actually actively selecting for parasite resistance, then they will have data to prove it. Otherwise they might be breeding ‘parasite resistant’ animals simply because they own animals of a breed (such as the Katahdin) that has a reputation for parasite resistance. Not every flock of a ‘parasite resistant breed’ is actually parasite resistant. Thus it is important to verify that the breeder is actually making tangible efforts to select for this trait.

If you have a breed of sheep that submits data to the National Sheep Improvement Plan (NSIP), look for a ram from a breeder that has NSIP data on their sheep. This will provide you valuable parasite resistance data, and also other useful production data on the sheep. This is one of the best ways to make large improvements on your flock quickly.

‘Buy local’ applies to sheep as well as produce

There is one more thing to consider when buying in sheep. It is best to select sheep from a breeder that is local or semi-local, if at all possible. They have already been selecting animals that perform well in your local environment.

Why is buying local sheep so important? Because parasite resistance is relative. For example. A parasite resistant sheep kept in a feedlot in Montana is likely NOT parasite resistant on a pasture in Florida. Without intervention, that ‘parasite resistant’ sheep might be dead of parasites within a month of moving to that Florida pasture. Why? Because the parasite pressure in Florida is exponentially higher than in Montana.

There are a few other things we need to keep in mind when selecting for parasite resistance.

When we are evaluating animals for parasite resistance, there are two kinds of immunity we need to consider. Innate immunity is the immunity the lambs are born with. They are just plain less hospitable environments for parasites from the day they are born. The second type of immunity is acquired immunity. This is the immune mediated response similar to how you get sick from a cold virus only once. This is a learned immunity to parasites.

For most parasite resistant breeds acquired immunity starts to kick in at 3-4 months of age. For non-parasite resistant breeds it is closer to 6-8 months of age. This is useful information to use both as you are selecting replacement ewes, but also as you are making management decisions.

We also need to keep in mind is that sheep can be both resilient and/or resistant to parasites. Resilience and resistance are not the same thing. A resilient sheep is one that is better than average at withstanding a high parasite load. They are better at making more blood faster. A resistant sheep has a low parasite load. Their immune system is really good at getting rid of barber pole worms.

Both of these animals will look identical out in your pasture. They will have identical FAMACHA scores when you check them for anemia. However, we would prefer to select for resistance because resistant animals are benefiting the rest of your flock. Resistant sheep are not shedding tons of live parasite eggs all over your pastures but resilient sheep still are.

Breeding for parasite resistance is done through a lot of culling

The bare minimum approach to selecting for parasite resistance includes culling poor performing animals. Cull ewes and lambs that require more deworming than the rest of your flock. Also cull any animals that seem to grow slower, or just do poorly compared to the flock average. Getting rid of the worst performing animals will slowly improve your flock.

To make progress faster. Do fecal egg counts (FEC) on your animals.

You can hasten the process to increased parasite resistance in your flock by regularly doing fecal egg counts (FEC) on your animals.

Cull animals that shed a lot of eggs around lambing, and keep those that don’t. We now know that periparturient rise is closely correlated with the overall parasite resistance of the ewes. This can also help you significantly reduce your farm’s overall parasite load.

Cull animals that consistently shed a high number of eggs, keep those that don’t. Keep in mind that animals in different life stages (eg. a lactating ewe), and high performing animals might have higher egg counts. It is important to track animal performance and FEC long term (over months or years) rather than using just one snapshot in time.

The thin ewe with a higher FEC who is feeding quads, might be just as resistant as the lower FEC chubby ewe feeding a single lamb. Her body is just much more stressed, and she is working much harder for you. If you checked again when both ewes are dry and in good body condition, you might find that your harder working ewe has a lower FEC than the other ewe. This is why we said ‘consistently shed a high number of eggs’.

Keep replacements from those that have less than average parasite egg shedding and who require less deworming than the average. Keep in mind the 80/20 rule. 20% of your animals are shedding 80% of the parasite eggs on your pasture. Getting rid of that 20% (or at least not keeping offspring from them) will reduce the parasite load on your pasture by 80%. Cull, cull cull, and before you know it you will have a more resistant flock!

One last thing to keep in mind

If we are going to be selecting our most parasite resistant animals to keep, we need to make sure that we are making fair comparisons. We know that bigger, larger sheep are better at withstanding parasites than smaller animals. A large single lamb will have less problems with parasites than a group of quads all other things being equal. Not because the single lamb is actually more resistant, but simply because it is just much bigger.

Another example of an unfair comparison would be comparing a January born lamb to an April born lamb. Don’t do it. Why? The January born lamb was born when there weren’t many parasites around. Your April born lamb will have been exposed to many more parasites. So for them to look like they ‘performed equally’ the April born lamb would actually need to have performed much, much better.

We need accurate data for it to be useful

So to get useful, accurate comparison data to select for parasite resistance, it is important to look at a contemporary group of lambs. That is a group of lambs that were born about the same time, from the same size litters, and who are fed and housed together in the same environment.

Take FEC from your lambs several times over the course of the summer, and use those numbers to select lambs to keep. Choose replacement lambs who have both high growth performance and consistently low egg counts.

Don’t base your choice on just 1 FEC

Look at how the lamb compares to the group average, and also how it compares to itself over time. Did your youngest/smallest lamb have the highest FEC in June at weaning, but then the lowest one a couple months later when the worm burden should have been greater? If so, you might have seen their acquired immunity kick in. Did you have a lamb who’s FEC stayed the same or went down when everyone else’s went up? This lamb probably has excellent parasite resistance. Ideally you want to select lambs that have been consistently out performing others all season.

The one drawback to using FEC data is that it requires either more time or expense than just culling based on FAMACHA scores. Nonetheless, it is worth the investment. It will get you to your goal faster.

We would also like to note, that if you wish to use FEC to select within your flock, but feel that you cannot afford to pay a vet or lab to perform that many FEC for you, this tool is not out of your reach. With a basic microscope and some practice, it is actually quite easy to perform FEC for yourself at home. That is going to be the topic for our last article in our barber pole worm series.

If you don’t want to miss out on that article, please sign up for our newsletter to have it delivered directly to you when it is written!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Get Started Breeding Parasite Resistant Sheep first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 1-The #1 Killer Of Small Ruminants

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 2-Controlling Worms Without Dewormer

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 4-Breeding Parasite Resistant Sheep

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 5-How To Do a Fecal Egg Count

In the next part of our series on barber pole worms, we are going to discuss proper deworming. It is extremely important to follow the guidelines to deworm properly. This is because there are no new dewormers being developed, and there is a lot of dewormer resistance building in this country.

A lot of this resistance can be attributed to our lack of understanding and inappropriate deworming practices. Unfortunately, many of these same practices are still widely used and are being recommended by people who do not understand how much harm they are causing. Thus, as a small ruminant owner, it is important to educate yourself on what the current recommendations are.

Dewormer resistance is due to improper use and over use of dewormers.

So first lets take a look at historical deworming practices.

Believe it or not, dewormers are actually pretty new to the scene. Modern anthelmintics, the official name for dewormers, didn’t come onto the scene until the 1960’s and 70’s. Prior to that options for controlling parasites were pretty limited.

As we settled into using dewormers, we settled into a lot of bad habits that have gotten us to the resistance problem we have here today. We had this new miracle cure and decided that it was a good idea to deworm all of our animals very frequently. Probably on the faulty assumption that we could eradicate the worms. When parasite resistance started to rear its head, we started making the recommendation to rotate dewormers every time we dewormed. Somewhere in here we also decided it was a good idea to move the animals to a new pasture immediately after deworming.

Unfortunately, while well intentioned, we now know that these practices are some of the best ways to create dewormer resistance.

We now know we cannot eradicate worms. We know a lot more about the lifecycle of parasites and barber pole worms are alarmingly persistent on pastures. We know that if you deworm and rotate your animals back and forth between two pastures every 30 days, you are NOT putting them in a clean worm free pasture. You are actually putting them back on the pasture at peak infectivity.

Not only were we not reducing parasite populations, because we were deworming every single animal frequently, we were creating dewormer resistance simply by the high quantity of exposure. Rather than helping, rotating dewormers just increases the parasites’ exposure. Resulting in worms resistant to not only 1 but 2 or even all 3 dewormer classes.

This deworming schedule also makes animals with good natural parasite resistance look exactly the same as those who are extremely susceptible. Ceasing to select strong healthy animals makes the problem a viscous cycle of weaker animals needing more deworming, so we deworm more making more weaker animals and more parasite resistance.

Every single dose of dewormer comes with risk

The risk of creating a resistant worm is there every single time we administer a dose of dewormer. However, your risk of creating a resistant worm goes up exponentially with increased dewormer useage. For example. If I administer 1 dose of dewormer to 1 animal in any given year, I have 1 chance of creating a resistant worm.

What if I give 12 doses to 100 animals in a year?

Well, then I suddenly have 1200 chances of doing it instead of 1.

If I rotate between the 3 dewormer classes, then I have 400 chances of a worm developing resistance to any one of the 3 dewormers. What happens if one of those 400 chances creates a resistant worm that just happens to win the lottery? That worm also is lucky enough to develop resistance to the next dose of dewormer you give. Suddenly you have a parasite resistant to 2 kinds of dewormers.

This wouldn’t have been possible if I had not been frequently deworming and rotating dewormers. If I had only dewormed a couple animals instead of every single animal on a schedule, I would have reduced the risk even more.

We now realize that we should not deworm on a schedule, and that we need to care for what we call ‘refugia’

Every farm has a population of worms. This includes both the worms inside your animals and on your pastures. Your refugia is the portion of that worm population that HAS NOT been exposed to your dewormer. These non-exposed worms are important because they dilute the resistant worms.

To maintain refugia you CANNOT deworm all your animals at the same time. You should also not put dewormed animals out onto a clean pasture. They should go back into the same wormy pasture that they were in prior to deworming. Putting the animals back into a wormy pasture is doubly important if you have to deworm a large portion of your group (such as with lambs).

Why is this so important?

We know that if we deworm an animal that has a resistant worm, that the animal is only shedding resistant parasite eggs onto your pasture. What if all of your animals are only shedding resistant worms on your pasture? This is what happens if you deworm all of your animals or put dewormed animals onto a clean pasture. Before you know it, there are only resistant worms on your farm because you selected for them. As you can imagine, this could pretty quickly turn into a huge problem. And it has. This is the problem we see on farms across the country and world.

So how do we deworm properly to protect our refugia and slow the progression of resistance?

Firstly, lets start with some DON’TS. For the reasons laid out above:

• Do not deworm any animal unless they actually need it (as determined by things like FAMACHA)

• Never deworm all your animals on a schedule.

• Never deworm all your animals at the same time.

• Do not deworm your animals and move them to a new pasture.

Additionally,

• Do not under dose dewormers

• Do not use injectable or pour on dewormers.

Under dosing, injecting or pouring on dewormers can contribute to resistance by exposing worms to sub-lethal doses of dewormer giving them more opportunity to adapt to it.

What we should be doing?

• Use FAMACHA and or fecal egg counts to determine what animals to deworm.

• Only deworm the animals that need to be dewormed.

• Return dewormed animals to a dirty pasture with other animals that have not been dewormed.

• Make sure that you weigh your animals accurately prior to deworming so that you can give them a proper dose. As mentioned above under dosing encourages resistance. 2 of the 3 classes of dewormers are extremely safe (a 10x dose will do no harm), so if in doubt, err on the side of over rather than under dosing. The 3^rd class needs an accurate weight to be dosed correctly.

• Deworm with all 3 classes of dewormer at the same time, eg. Cydectin®, Valbazen®, and Prohibit®. Don’t put them in the same syringe, but give one right after the other.

• Get fecal egg count reduction tests done periodically to determine the efficacy of your dewormers

• Remember it is normal (and even healthy and beneficial) for your animals to carry some level of parasites.

What are the 3 classes of dewormers are, and why are they important?

Despite different branding, each of the dozen different dewormers on the store shelf is not a unique entity. Any time we are discussing dewormers, it is important to keep in mind that there are only 3 types or classes of dewormers. Within each class there are several different dewormers sold under various brand names. For example macrolytic lactones include ivermectin (Ivomec®) and moxidectin (brand names Quest® or Cydectin®). Benzimidazoles include fenbendazole (Safeguard®) and albendazole (Valbazen®). Levamisole (Prohibit®) and morantel tartrate (Rumatel®) are nicotinic agonists.

Why does this matter? Because each family has a unique mode of action. Resistance is to the mode of action not the brand. If your parasite is resistant to ivermectin, it is also resistant to moxidectin. This means that in practical application we have 3 dewormers total. Giving 2 from the same class doesn’t benefit your animals or your wallet.

We also mentioned above that you should give a dewormer from all 3 classes at the same time every time you deworm.

Right about now, you might be confused by the recommendation to give all 3 dewormers at the same time. After all, we just talked about how scheduled rotational deworming between different classes of dewormers increased resistance. Now we are telling you the current recommendation is to deworm with all 3 classes of dewormer at once.

Seems backwards doesn’t it? It isn’t though. Let’s look at why you give all 3 dewormers together.

At this point in time, every single farm in this country has some level of dewormer resistance. We are beyond the point of preventing resistance by not exposing worms. We are to the point of reducing resistance. This is where deworming with all 3 dewormers comes in. It is actually much more effective than rotational deworming because you are not allowing the resistant worms to reproduce.

How this concept works is easy to show with some simple math.

In the table below, we have a list of 3 hypothetical dewormers. The percentage listed in each column are how effective each dewormer is by itself. The total column shows how effective the dewormers are together.

As you can see from this table if we use dewormer 1 by itself, 10% of the worms live to reproduce and shed eggs on your field. Adding dewormer 2 means only 1% of the resistant worms are left. If we add dewormer #3 to the mix, there are only 0.1% of parasite resistant worms left.

This is very significant.

Rather than letting the population resistant to dewormer 1 reproduce you are immediately killing them with dewormers 2 and 3. A single barber pole worm can produce 10,000 eggs per day, so that 10% left alive can do some serious damage in the 60 days before you killed them with dewormer 2 on a rotational deworming program (or 120 days for dewormer 3).

Looking at a different example for less effective dewormers, we see that even if all 3 dewormers are only 50% effective by themselves you can still kill almost 90% of the worms if they are used together. This is also very significant. This leaves you with only 10% resistant worms (instead of 50%), out there reproducing in your fields.

More importantly, this increased kill rate from combination deworming makes them effective enough to save an animal.

A dewormer that provides 50% kill is unlikely to save a severely anemic animal. 90% kill on the other hand might not be ideal, but it will save that animal. And that is information worth taking home with you!

So as we can see, using all three dewormers together, and only on animals that absolutely need them is the best way to prolong their usefulness for our animals. However, keep in mind. This is just buying us time.

The end of dewormer effectiveness is inevitable, and has already come in some areas. Thus it is important to also practice good management to minimize your animals exposure to parasites. If you are ever unsure of what is best check the American Consortium For Small Ruminant Parasite Control for the most up to date information. Most importantly, it is important to work towards selecting parasite resistant animals. In the next portion of this series, we are going to discuss how you go about selecting a parasite resistant animal.

If you don’t want to miss out on our discussion of selecting for parasite resistance, sign up for our news letter!

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Properly Deworm Your Sheep first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 1-The #1 Killer Of Small Ruminants

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 3-How To Properly Deworm

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 4-Breeding Parasite Resistant Sheep

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 5-How To Do a Fecal Egg Count

In our last installment of our series about barber pole worms, we looked at what they are and why they are so important to manage in our small ruminant flocks. Most importantly, we learned how to know if your sheep or goats have them. Since barber pole worms can be so deadly to small ruminants it important to understand their lifecycle. In this article we will look at how we can manage our animals to reduce their risk and exposure.

On most farms, the first line of defense against barber pole worms is dewormer. Unfortunately, we are developing serious dewormer resistance problems in this country and throughout the world. There are no new dewormers being developed. We are rapidly realizing that using dewormers to manage barber pole worms is only going to be a temporary fix. Our heavy reliance on them for the last 70 years might have been a mistake. This is a topic we are going to cover in more detail in our next installment of this post.

But for now we will just say, that if your animal has a dangerous amount of parasites, we can give it a dewormer to kill the parasites. However, this is just a very temporary fix to a much larger problem. In a few weeks time your sheep could have just as many worms, and be in the same situation as they were prior to deworming. Unlike in the past, we can no longer just keep giving every single animal a dose of dewormer every few weeks.

So let’s take a look at the barber pole worm’s life cycle, and how we can go about managing it with out dewormers.

Where do they come from?

To begin, we need to understand how our sheep are getting worms in the first place.

Barber pole worms are living in your sheep’s stomach. Their eggs are being excreted in manure. Once this manure is on the ground, the eggs hatch into larvae that your sheep eventually consume completing the life cycle.

The cycle is very simple. The management of it less so.

Firstly, barber pole worm eggs can hatch and complete their life cycle very quickly. In favorable weather conditions of warmth and humidity, it can take only 3-4 days for an egg dropped in manure to turn into an infective larva ready for your sheep to consume. These conditions occur from May to September, or even longer in more southern portions of the country. Once the sheep has eaten the larvae they migrate to the stomach and set up shop. They then start sucking your sheep’s blood, and can rapidly cause anemia and death if more than 500 worms are present.

To make matters worse, barber pole worms are extremely good at laying eggs. One barberpole worm may lay up to 10,000 eggs per day. So even the presence of one worm can contaminate your pasture with a lot of potential parasites. Though not every egg will survive to become an infective larvae, it is important to understand that even under less than ideal conditions more than enough of these eggs will likely survive.

Once they become the infective larvae found on grass, they are extremely tough and hard to kill. In fact, they can lay waiting in your pasture for 6 months or more. They just sit there waiting for your sheep to consume them.

As if they needed an additional survival technique

The barber pole worms know that their eggs and early larvae will be killed during freezing weather. When the weather gets cold in the fall worms in your sheep’s stomach will be triggered to turn into dormant cysts burrowed in the stomach wall. These cysts sit and wait patiently for spring ensuring barber pole worms survive to live another year.

When your ewes get close to lambing, they experience something called the periparturient rise in egg shedding. Essentially, lambing triggers a drastic increase in the worm and egg production in your ewes. All the dormant worms in your sheep’s stomach become active again. Additionally, their immune system is suppressed allowing more new worms to attach and shed eggs.

This ensures that your ewes contaminate the pasture with fresh healthy larvae. It also ensures that your vulnerable lambs will be infected to keep the worm cycle going.

So what can be done?

This information about the barber pole worm’s lifecycle gives us some hints about how we can reduce risk through our management practices. It is quite obvious that reducing our animal’s exposure to manure is the way to reduce their exposure to barber pole worms. The question is how do we do this?

It can be very difficult to do entirely, but there are some things that you can do to help.

Firstly, don’t feed your sheep on the ground. Sheep will poop anywhere and everywhere. If they are getting hay or grain, put it up in a feeder where they can’t poop on it. This way they are not eating in the same place they poop.

Dry lots can be very helpful!

Another way you can reduce exposure is to keep your animals on a dry lot. A dry lot is a small paddock that has no grass in it. NONE. No weeds, nothing. It should also be constructed in a manner that it stays dry and easy to clean. Feed your animals up of the ground. Clean your dry lot at least every few days to remove the manure before the worm eggs have a chance to develop into infective larvae.

Now we know not everyone wants to keep their animals on a dry lot eating expensive hay year round. This isn’t the solution if you want pasture raised grass fed animals. Regardless, in a pasture based system dry lots can still be a useful tool.

For example, do you have animals struggling with parasite burdens? It is an excellent idea to remove them from pasture and put them in a dry lot while they recover. It is also a good idea to put your sheep into a dry lot in the winter months when you are feeding them hay. This way they are not dropping worm eggs on your pastures all winter long. Because as we know less fresh worm eggs on pasture = less parasites out there come spring.

So what else do we know?

We also know that our lambs are the most vulnerable to parasites. Thus it would obviously be ideal to be able to turn our most vulnerable young lambs out onto a pasture that doesn’t have a huge parasite load.

So how can you go about accomplishing this when it can take 6-8 months or more for all the larvae to die?

First we should mention in case you are wondering based upon the information above, no. Winter does not clean your pasture of parasites. New eggs and early stage larvae will likely be killed by freezing temperatures. However, the infective larvae can overwinter in a pasture. They can actually live longer in cool weather because their metabolism is slower. You won’t accumulate new parasites as readily during the winter months. Nonetheless, the ones left over from the end of the summer are likely still lying in wait.

So how DO we manage our pastures to lower the parasite levels?

There are a few different directions you can go with pasture management. They all come with pros and cons, and you will have to determine what works best for your particular situation.

Probably the most common method you hear mentioned is rotational grazing. If we move our animals to new pasture every 3-4 days before the larvae become infective, then we reduce our animal’s exposure. You are then supposed to avoid moving them back to that pasture for a minimum of 40 days, or significantly longer in cooler weather. This long rest interval allows many of the larvae to die prior to returning the animals to the pasture.

The problem with this is that for many producers, it is impractical. It requires an awful lot of land to move your sheep that often, and to keep them off for that long.

An alternative to rotating them every few days is to leave them in the pasture longer/return to the pasture sooner. In this scenario, you determine when to rotate based upon the height of the grass rather than the hatch rate of the larvae.

Barber pole larvae has to crawl from the manure up the blades of grass. They aren’t exceptionally athletic, so the majority of the larvae will remain within a few inches of the ground. If you don’t allow your animals to graze your pastures shorter than 6” their exposure will be drastically reduced.

The drawback to this method, is that you can’t explain this concept to your sheep. Your sheep might choose to selectively graze more palatable grass species closer to the ground while ignoring other ones. This means that even if your overall pasture height is greater than 6”, the grass the animals are choosing to actually graze might not be.

If you can’t rotate then reduce

Another suggestion is to reduce your stocking density. Less sheep = less worms. Unfortunately, this once again returns to the theme of needing a lot of land to implement.

One last grazing technique worth mentioning here is multi-species grazing. Barber pole worms do not affect horses or cows, and their parasites don’t infect small ruminants. This means that we can very safely alternate graze to the benefit of both species. If you graze sheep through your pasture, follow with cows. Then return to grazing sheep, and keep alternating all season. The cows will consume the majority of the barber pole worm larvae, and they will fail to complete their life cycle.

This is a concept that you can also apply to grazing groups of sheep at different life stages. It won’t be as effective as using a different species, but still may be worth considering, particularly if you have parasite resistant breeds of sheep.

In this scenario, graze your lambs through your pasture, and the have your adult sheep follow behind. Your lambs are carrying the highest parasite load, and are shedding the most eggs. When the adult sheep follow your lambs, they will consume and their immune system will kill a lot of the larvae the lambs deposited. This will leave you with a cleaner pasture than your young lambs left.

At this point you might be wondering if there is a way to completely get rid of the larvae on a pasture

Unfortunately, under most circumstances it can be very difficult to have ‘clean’ worm free pastures. However, there are a few things that you can do to give you pastures that are clean or as close to clean as possible.

First is the obvious one. Allowing a pasture to go ungrazed for a full 12 months will result in the death of virtually every single parasite. So, if you have enough land to allow one pasture to sit empty each year, you would have a clean area to move your lambs into every spring.

A variation on this theme, is to rotationally use your pastures for hay. For example, take a first cutting of hay off, and then to graze it afterwards. The process of drying and removing the hay nets you a worm free pasture. Once you move your sheep to the pasture you took a first cutting off, allow the pasture they came from to regrow. Remove a 2^nd cutting from that pasture. You can once again move your sheep to a clean pasture for fall grazing.

Annual crops can be very beneficial in a parasite control program

Another thing that you can do is to till and reseed pastures or plant annual forages rather than using perennial grass pastures. As it would turn out the crowns of perennial grasses are excellent places for larvae to overwinter. Tilling up the pasture to plant annual forages turns those larvae into the soil where they will die.

Now, planting annuals isn’t practical for everyone, and if you can grow perennial grasses we definitely wouldn’t recommend tearing up all your pastures. However, if you are struggling with a serious worm problem, renovating a pasture can help you to mitigate it. It can also be a very useful tool if you have enough space that you can plant an annual forage pasture specifically for your lambs every year. If you rotationally graze your lambs across an annual pasture making only one rotation across it (don’t re-graze any of it), you would likely have virtually no parasite problems in your growing animals.

For those of you without vast acreages of land or equipment

Now, I know that for many people these options are impractical or impossible. Not everyone has acres and acres and acres of land or the equipment to tear up and replant pastures. You will have to do your best to come up with creative ways to manage worms along the lines of these principals and through the tools that you do have available.

The most valuable tool you have at your disposal is genetics. Sadly, for so many years this has been completely overlooked. We have been so reliant on cheap and easy monthly deworming to control parasites that we have forgotten that parasite resistance is an important trait to breed for. With the rise of serious dewormer resistance problems, it is a trait we are beginning to look at more closely. Thankfully, there has been a lot of research on the topic recently. What we have learned is very encouraging.

Because you are managing small flocks, you have the ability to track individual animal performance closely enough to make real improvements. Do not keep wormy animals. 20% of your sheep are carrying 80% of the parasites. If you remove that 20%, then you are removing 80% of the eggs being shed on your pasture. This selective culling greatly benefits all of your animals.

Its up to you to select for valuable traits like parasite resistance

Parasite resistance IS a heritable trait and something that we can easily select for. This holds true for both sheep and goats. It is something that anyone can improve in their flock over time. As a general rule, sheep are probably ahead of goats in this department. There are breeds of sheep like the Katahdin and St. Croix that have reputations for being very parasite resistance. Plus, many big name Katahdin breeders are very actively competing to produce the most parasite resistant sheep.

However, goat owners, and sheep owners of non parasite resistant breeds or flocks should not despair. Research has clearly shown that even if you don’t have a parasite resistant flock to begin with you can significantly improve (or worsen) their parasite resistance based upon how you select your replacement animals.

Parasite resistance, and how we measure and select for it is a very interesting topic we are going to delve deeper into in a future article. However it is something that takes time to make improvements on. Right now you need useful tools to help you manage your current flock. So first, we are going to to take a detour to look at deworming in our next article.

If you would like to read the rest of this series, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter to get them delivered to your inbox.

Please remember

The information provided is for general informational purposes only. All information on the site is provided in good faith, for general informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional advice. We make no representation or warranty of any kind, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, availability, or completeness of any information on this Site. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. We do not provide any kind of professional advice. THE USE OR RELIANCE OF ANY INFORMATION CONTAINED ON THE SITE IS SOLELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. View full disclaimer here.

The post How To Control Barber Pole Worms Without Dewormer first appeared on Snowdrop Farm.

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 2-Controlling Worms Without Dewormer

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 3-How To Properly Deworm

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 4-Breeding Parasite Resistant Sheep

Barber Pole Worm Series Part 5-How To Do a Fecal Egg Count

Identifying and recognizing the effects of Barber Pole worms is one thing that every new small ruminant owner absolutely needs to know about. While there may be a million things that could go wrong with your animals, the vast majority of them are things you are likely to never encounter. The barber pole worm (or Haemonchus contortus) on the other hand is something virtually every sheep or goat owner will have to deal with.

The barber pole worm is the number 1 killer of sheep and goats. Sadly, many new shepherds learn about barber pole worms the hard way—through the death or near death of their animals. Worse yet, this heartache is almost 100% preventable through education. Understanding how to spot and manage this parasite is as important learning how to feed your animals properly.

We keep sheep so will mainly be referring to sheep throughout these articles. However, this information also applies to goats.

Let’s look at what the barber pole worm is

The barber pole worm is a gastrointestinal parasite. It gets its name from its striped appearance, and it lives in the stomach of your sheep.

Most animal species can get parasites. The majority of gastrointestinal parasites, such as the ones cats, dogs, horses or cows get steal nutrients from their host. These parasites typically cause obvious symptoms such as a poor body condition, rough hair coat, or diarrhea. They are not often deadly, and are easy to spot and remedy before they kill an animal.

Unfortunately small ruminants are not so lucky. The most common, and by far most problematic parasite is the barber pole worm. Barber pole worms don’t steal nutrients, but rather blood. This blood sucking habit is a fairly unique trait. Unfortunately, this trait makes them very deadly because they will cause anemia.

Barber pole worms are capable of eating ALL of the blood inside of your sheep, and as you know, you cannot live with out blood.

Unlike with nutrient stealing parasites, you cannot just eat more food to compensate for blood loss. Bone marrow can only make blood so fast. This means that with a high barber pole worm load, it is easy for the parasite’s blood consumption to exceed the sheep’s ability to make replacement blood. Additionally, it takes weeks to make new blood cells. Even if you eliminated every single one of the parasites today, that can sometimes still be too late for the animal to recover from the blood loss.

Perhaps one of the most horrible things about barber pole worms is the speed with which they can kill an animal, particularly a lamb or kid. It is possible for the parasite burden to build up so quickly that a lamb can go from seemingly perfectly fine to dead in a weeks time. This is why it is important to be educated about when and how to monitor your animals for parasite problems.

When do I need to be worried about barber pole worms?

If you live in the majority of the United States, you should be concerned about barber pole worms. They are of particularly high concern any time the weather is warm and your animals are grazing pasture. They are a really big problem in the southeast where the summers are long, hot, and humid.

If you live in a colder more northern location like Vermont, you may only have a few months of the year where barber pole worm pressure is high. In the deep south it may be of concern 365 days of the year. People living in very dry climates such as California may not have to be as concerned. However, regardless of where you live, it is always a good idea to keep a close eye on your animals.

Watch your lambs and kids extra closely

You should keep a close eye on your lambs and kids starting in the spring as they are more susceptible to parasites than adults. They have less blood, and less developed immune systems so they are less able to tolerate and fight off parasites. You should also keep a close eye on your ewes during late gestation and early lactation. They are more prone to parasites around this time. As the summer warms, you should carefully monitor all of your animals until it has started freezing again. In a normal year the parasite burden will continue to rise as the summer progresses.

Barber pole worms will become more of a problem the longer you keep animals on a given piece of land. Just because you don’t have parasite problems the first year or two of keeping sheep does not mean you should assume you will never have a problem. The longer you have your flock, the more parasite burden your pastures build up.

Because this is an extremely important topic, we do not want to gloss over it here. In our next installment of this series we will be looking at the life cycle and management of this parasite. Equally importantly we will look at how to properly and judiciously deworm your animal to prevent parasite resistance. Parasite resistance is becoming a huge problem that is threatening small ruminant producers everywhere.

Before we do that though, we are going to take the rest of this article to take a closer look at how to “see” this invisible parasite. We want you to be able to detect it before you have a dead or dying animal on your hands.

How do I know if my animals have a high barber pole worm load?

Barber pole worms are sneaky, tricky little things. There are no obvious outward symptoms until the animal is close to dying. In fact, often times small ruminants will go from looking fat and healthy straight to dead with no symptoms at all.

If you do have an animal that presents with symptoms, you are lucky. This animal needs to be dewormed with an effective dewormer IMMEDIATELY. You are in a race against the clock to save their life. The most likely symptoms you will see are bottle jaw, and severe anemia. They will also likely be dull and lethargic (laying down instead of up with the herd) with little to no exercise tolerance.

Obviously these are terrible ways to determine if an animal needs help. If your animal has progressed to this stage, there is a very good chance that it is too late to save them, and they will die.

There are two better ways to detect barber pole early

Thankfully, there are much better ways to determine parasite load without waiting for symptoms. Both of these early detection methods require a commitment on the part of the shepherd to be proactive in searching for problems. Even if your animals look fat, happy and healthy. You must remember barber pole worms are usually invisible killers.

The first of two ways that you can determine parasite load in your sheep is by do a fecal exam to look for parasite eggs. This is an excellent way to determine the species and number of parasites. It is a tool we highly recommend using. It can help you determine if there are other parasites besides barber pole at work inside your animal. It can also help you to determine if your dewormer is effective.

However, this tool is not very useful for making decisions on the fly out in the field when you are handling your animals. It is best used when combined with another tool called FAMACHA.

FAMACHA sounds weird, what is that?

FAMACHA is a technique used to determine anemia levels quickly out in the field with no special tools or equipment. It was developed in South Africa as a tool to help producers there determine when to deworm their animals.

FAMACHA if used properly can be a very helpful management too. It can help you to accurately determine anemia levels in both individual animals and within your entire flock. This can help you make both deworming and other important management decisions.

FAMACHA doesn’t tell you the exact number of worms present like the fecal egg count. BUT, it does tell you if an animal is in danger of dying from them. On a day to day basis, this is the singularly most important piece of information. It allows you to determine what animals are struggling so that you can deworm them before they are at risk of dying.

How does it work?

FAMACHA is based on a visual examination of the animal’s mucus membranes to identify anemia which is the major symptom of barber pole worm damage. FAMACHA uses an anemia scoring system on a scale of 1-5. 5 being extremely anemic and 1 being not anemic at all. This color coded chart takes the guess work out of deworming. If your animal scores a 1 or 2 no deworming is necessary. If they show a 4 or 5 you need to deworm them immediately.

3 is a bit trickier. If they show a 3 they may or may not need deworming. Whether they need dewormed or not at a FAMACHA 3 depends on many variables. If you are confident that your animal will clear the parasites on their own (such as with our Katahdins right after lambing) it is ok to closely monitor and take a wait and see approach. If you don’t think they will clear the parasites on their own, such as is the case with young lambs, you should go ahead and deworm them.

A few more preliminary details….

Before we take a quick look at how to check your sheep’s mucus membranes for anemia. We need to discuss some other details. The recommendation is to check the mucus membranes of every single sheep every 2 weeks unless you have a high level of anemia present. If you have a lot of anemic animals it is best to check them weekly. Sheep, particularly lambs can go from borderline anemic to dead in 2 weeks time.

In colder weather you can check less frequently, perhaps every 3-4 weeks rather than 1-2 as long as you are not seeing anemia in your flock. Keep in mind that your ewes and does will often have a large parasite bloom around the time that they lamb. It is a good idea to monitor your late gestation/early lactation ewes more closely.

It is an excellent idea to both familiarize yourself with the normal membrane color of your animals eyes and to purchase a FAMACHA card. The FAMACHA card will give you a non-subjective color to compare you sheep’s mucus membranes to. This will take any guess work out of the process.

To obtain a FAMACHA card you will need to take a course on the topic. The course can be taken in person, or alternatively, University of Rhode Island has a free online course that will allow you to purchase a card at the end. Please keep in mind that it is best to purchase an actual FAMACHA card. Cards printed off of the internet may not represent the colors accurately.

Now, lets step out into the pasture to see how to do FAMACHA properly

First you will need to catch and restrain your animals so that you can work around their heads. It can be very helpful to have a partner to help you, particularly if your animals are not used to being handled. Once you have your animals restrained, stand next to their shoulder so that you can push one side of their head against your leg. Once you are here you can begin the process of looking at the mucus membranes in their eyes to determine their anemia levels.

Step 1:

Hold their head gently against your leg. Then you push their upper eyelid closed with your thumb

Step 2:

Once their eyelid is closed, gently apply pressure to their eyeball to push it back inside their head a little bit. Doing this is in no way hurting them.

Step 3:

While applying pressure to their eyeball, use the thumb of your other hand to pull downward on the lower eyelid. At this point the mucus membrane is exposed.

Step 4:

Compare the mucus membrane to your FAMACHA card. Don’t compare your card to the inner eyelid color, but rather to the mucus membrane that you pushed up next to the eyeball. You need to do this quickly as the membrane will color up more the longer you hold the eye open. If you wait too long to compare you will get an inaccurately low number.

DO NOT try to just pull down the lower eyelid. This will not give you an accurate anemia score as you are looking at the eyelid not the mucus membrane.

Also, sometimes when you attempt this step the animals 3rd eyelid will bulge out. It will be white and may look scary. Don’t be alarmed, simply remove your fingers from their eye and try again pushing a little bit further back on their eye.

Step 5:

Repeat with the other eye. Make your deworming decisions based on the color of the more anemic eye (highest FAMACHA card number).

That’s it. Simple as that.

In our next article in this series we are going to look at the lifecycle of barber pole worms and how we can control them through deworming and management practices. We are also going to talk about parasite resistance and why it is so important for everyone to follow the best management practices put forth by the American Consortium For Small Ruminant Parasite Control. If you wish to read more on this topic they are an EXCELLENT resource full of not only information, but also links to university research on topic.

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