Comparing Alternatives for Controlling Internal Parasites in Dairy Goats

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Holisitic Goats

 

 

 

Comparing Alternatives for Controlling Internal Parasites in Dairy Goats

 

Herbal vs. Chemical

By Crissy Orr

Ocean View JH

6th grade

 

I would like to Thank Crissy Orr for her contribution of this article

to the list. Great paper!!!!

 

 

 

Introduction

 

Internal parasites are a management problem in dairy goat herds around

the world. The population of registered dairy goats in the U.S. has

increased steadily from 3,269 in 1964 to 32,459 in 1975. At that rate

we would have over 300,000 today, just in the U.S. That is a lot of

internal parasites! Fortunately, there are alternatives to controlling

parasite loads. Many chemicals have been developed. Before chemicals

were developed, herbal remedies were used. In fact, goats in the wild

will seek out herbs that will kill internal parasites.

 

Goats have been domesticated at least as long as any other domestic

animal. Nearly three hundred recognizable breeds occur. Dairy goats

are located all over the world. In Africa, goats thrive in areas where

cattle barely exist. Goats of the wild that live on foraging are

healthier than goats tethered in stalls their whole lives. Wild goats

live were the weather is very harsh. The climate is cold in the

winter, hot in the summer and hardly ever rains. Vegetation is scanty

and growth of plants occurs only when rain falls. This may be why

goats are adapted for living a nomadic life, always moving to new

grazing lands. This prevents their environment from building up with

infective stages of parasites. In fenced pastures, parasites can build

up and continually re-infect the herd. Good herd management will

interrupt this cycle.

 

The internal parasites that affect goats in our area are nematodes,

flukes, tapeworms, and Coccidia. Flukes are not always a problem

because they can only complete their life cycle in warm, moist

environments such as swampy areas. I found that some worms could cause

anemia. This can affect growth, strength, productivity and

reproduction. Tapeworms absorb digested nutrients from the gut and

literally starve the host when numbers are large. Small numbers of

worms are healthy. Goats without worms will have no resistance to

parasites and when exposed will get very sick or die.

 

Two ways of keeping worms populations down in a herd are management

and facilities. Sound management will minimize exposure to infective

larvae and make use of some remedies that will destroy adult worms in

the animal's body. If using medication, all food should be withheld

from the animals for at least 15 hours before treatment. The treated

animal should be confined in a small stall or lot. Phenothiazine,

Thiabendazole, Mebendazole, Cambendazole, Levamisole and the

Ivermectin group are available drug treatments for worms. Good

facilities are clean pen areas, clean, fresh food, sanitary milking

areas, sterile instruments and clean water. Rotation of pastures and

dry lots are also good. Goats are primarily browsing animals and will

graze the wild plants and shrubs rather than grasses. Dry lots are

fenced parts of the pasture that the goats are rotated through so that

the worms do not have a chance to build up. Nutrition also plays a big

role in worm loads. Dairy goats must have fresh hay, clean water, and

grain should be stored in a clean dry place. Goats need lots of

exercise for their health and appetite. Some internal parasites are

Blood sucking Worms, Tape worms and Lung worms. The types of parasites

Ivermectin kills are Haemonchus contortus, Ostertagia circumcincta,

Trichostrongylus axei, Trichostrongylus, Nematodirus, Bunostomum

trigonocephalum, Oesophagostomum columbianum, Cooteria curticei,

Strongyloides papillosus (small round worm nematode), Trichuris ovis

(whipworm) and Chabertia ovina.

Ivermectin is a popular chemical wormer for goats, cattle and horses

and is considered quite safe. Ivermectin is a member of the

macrocyclic lactone class of pesticides, which act by binding

selectively to GABA and glutamate-gated chloride ion channels, which

occur in invertebrate nerve and muscle cells. It works by increasing

the permeability of the cell membrane allowing chloride ions to cross

the cell membrane and paralyze the cell, killing the parasite. These

compounds are considered safe for mammals because mammals do not have

glutamate-gated chloride channels in muscle cells. Brain cells do but

the chemicals are not thought to cross the blood-brain barrier.

Herbal remedies have been used for centuries. The following chart list

plants and preparation methods to prevent internal parasite build-up.

Plants that are Known to Expel or Prevent Internal Parasites

 

*Taken from Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and Stable

 

Name of Plant and Dosage

 

Preparation Method

 

Aloes

 

 

Aloes balls are made with 6-8 drams of juice

 

Birch

 

 

Strong brew made with one handful of leaves to one cup of water

 

Broom

 

 

1 handful of the plant tops brewed in two pints of water

 

Buckbean

 

 

1 handful of leaves daily

 

Buckthorn

 

 

5 ripe berries gently warmed in 1/2 pint water. Stir in 1 Tbs. Honey

and 1/4 Tbs. ginger. Give one cup daily

 

Castor Oil

 

 

4 tablespoons given once

 

Century

 

 

a handful of the herb brewed in one pint of water

 

Chives

 

 

a handful daily in bran mash

 

Fennel

 

 

2 handfuls of the whole herb fed raw twice daily

 

Male Fern

 

 

6 " of dried root finely sliced and boiled into a pulp Add 3/4 pint

water. Follow with caster oil drench 30 min. later

 

Garlic

 

 

2 bulbs or whole plants twice daily

 

Honeysuckle

 

 

handful of leaves or flowers chopped and mixed with bran daily

 

Hop

 

 

5 handfuls of flowers once daily

 

Horseradish

 

 

1-2 roots grated into bran twice daily

 

Houseleek

 

 

The foliage, well pounded, made into pills with flowers and grease

 

Hyssop

 

 

2 handfuls given twice daily in bran

 

Lemon

 

 

seeds crushed in honey, 1-Tbs. daily

 

Mandrake

 

 

1 tsp. of root cut up small to 3/4-cup water

 

Mountain Flax

 

 

2-4 handfuls to 1 1/2 pints water plus honey

 

Mulberry

 

 

several handfuls of fruit twice daily

 

Nasturtium

 

 

1 desert spoon of the seeds

 

Nettle

 

 

seeds mixed into food

 

Potato

 

 

Juice raw

 

Holly hock

 

 

handful of leaves fed raw

 

Mustard seeds

 

 

2 handfuls of the whole herb or the seeds fed raw twice daily

 

Rue

 

 

1/2 handful chopped small given in bran

 

Santolina

 

 

minced flowers made into balls with thick honey

 

Senna

 

 

8 pods soaked in cold water for 7 hours, add a pinch of ginger

 

Southernwood

 

 

1 handful of the herb brewed into two pints of water

 

Tansy

 

 

1 handful herb brewed into two pints of water plus 2 Tbs. honey

 

Thyme

 

 

1 handful brewed, finely cut and mixed in food morning and night

 

Valerian

 

 

4 roots finely sliced in 1-quart water, 1-pint morning and night

 

Walnut

 

 

2 handfuls leaves brewed in 2 pints water add honey

 

Wormwood

 

 

1 handful herb brewed in 1 1/2 pints water + 1 Tbs. honey, give one

capful twice daily

 

 

Nematode life cycles can be long or short. A typical nematode life

cycle involves stages in and out of the host. Trichosrongylus, for

example, enters its host as a larva when the goat feeds on infested

grass or while grooming after lying on infested ground. The larva

burrows into the mucosa of the stomach and develops into egg laying

adults in 18-21 days.

 

Strongyloides papillosus, a small slender roundworm, can enter through

the skin and teat openings. Larva climb up through the skin between

the hooves. This is a parasite of the small intestine.

 

Lungworms such as Dictyocaulus, Protostrongylus and Muellerius are

eaten as larva, which burrow through the mucosa and migrate through

the bloodstream to the lungs where they develop into adults in the

bronchi. Adults lay eggs that are coughed up, swallowed and passed

with feces.

 

Tapeworms such as Monezia pass egg packets called proglottids which

may appear round, square or triangular. Tapeworms attach themselves

with hooks to the internal wall and absorb nutrients from the animal.

 

An effective wormer will interrupt a life cycle by blocking any one of

these stages.

 

 

Hypothesis

 

Based on my research, my hypothesis is that herbal will work better

then chemical wormers because herbal is more natural. Goats in the

wild eat de-worming plants to shed worms from their systems. Chemicals

can be hard on goats. If herbal works in the wild with hardy mountain

goats, I figure it will work for dairy goats.

 

Procedure

 

My plan is to test Hoegger herbal treatment against Ivermectin

chemical treatment. I will do this by using both as directed and since

Ivermectin is used every 3 months I will run my experiment for 3 months.

 

I can not have a control group because if goats go without worming for

too long it can cause anemia, poor growth, lower reproductive success,

drop in milk production, and increased susceptibility to disease. This

study, as I have planned it, will run through milk production season

and into breeding season. Also, all the test goats will be kept

together so if I had some untreated control goats, they would

contaminate the pens with their droppings that would be high in

parasite eggs. Even though this greatly affects the data of my

project, I will not take the risk of sick or compromised dairy goats.

 

The herd I will be using has 17 milkers, 2 wethers, 2 dry does, 2 dry

yearlings, and 6 bucks. A total of 29 goats were divided into 2 groups.

 

First I did fecal tests on all the goats. Then I began the treatments.

The Chemical Group was treated on August 22, 1998. The Herbal Group

began treatment on August 24 with two doses per day for three

consecutive days and then weekly after that for 12 weeks until the

final worming and sampling on November 21, 1998.

 

I did not know how long after treatment with Ivermectin it would take

for the worms to come out. I designed another experiment to find out

when the peak discharge of worms was so that I could get the best

sample from each goat at the final worming. I wormed two of my goats,

Suzzy and Sunny. I overlapped the two wormings by 12 hours so that I

could sample two goats for 15 hours and get all the data.

Equipment List

 

fecal float kits

 

Berry catcher

 

Flotation solution (Fecasol)

 

Microscope

 

Slides

 

Coverslips

 

29 goats

 

Ivermectin pour-on x 43 doses

 

Hoeggers x 2 bags-15x18 doses (1teaspoon)

 

 

Fecalizer Procedure

 

 

 

1) Place goat berry specimen in Fecalizer.

 

2) Insert center part and add Fecalsov to first mark. Turn center part

back and forth. I do this to loosen the eggs and worms so they can

float up.

 

3) Press center part down hard with the flat side of a butter knife.

Fill Fecalizer to the top until the meniscus bumps up a bit. Then put

a 22 mm coverslip on top.

 

4) Let sit for 15 - 20 minutes. This is so the worms and eggs can

float up to the coverslip. They float up because they are less dense

than the fluid.

 

5) Take the coverslip carefully from the Fecalizer and place it on a

slide.

 

6) Look at it under the microscope at 100 x magnification. I searched

for eggs and worms by starting on the left and then I would go

straight down, move to the right a little ways, then go up and so

forth. As I looked for eggs and worms, I graded the amount of each

that I found. If found only one in the sample I gave it a " 1 " . If I

could see 2-3 eggs at a time I marked down a " 2 " . If I could see 4-5

eggs at a time I marked a " 3 " . If I saw 6-10 or more I put down " 4 " . I

did the same with the worms.

 

7) To clean out the Fecalizer I dug out the fecal material with a

toothpick.

 

These were then soaked in 5% bleach water.

 

After a while, I rinsed them, let them dry and them put them away.

Results

 

I found out that the peak of discharge of worms from a treatment with

Ivermectin pour-on was at 20-21 hours. With this information, I

decided to worm the herd at 11:30 AM on November 21st.

I came back the next day and collected fecal samples from all the test

goats. I did this with the help of my friends, Amie Allred, Aaron

Quigly, Karen Allred and my Mom. I had to catch all the samples within

one hour. We put a berry from each goat in a fecalizer and labeled it.

I took the samples home and looked at each one under the microscope. I

graded the amount of each that I found. Remember from the procedures

that a grade of " 2 " has way more than a " 1 " .

 

Overall, the herbal group always had lower parasite numbers. This

proves my hypothesis that herbal will work better then chemical

wormers. Some of the numbers were not significantly different.

 

Strongyloides (threadworms) were found in 0% of the herbal group and

in 29% of the chemical group. The herbal treatment worked well. In

this graph we see that there are many more Strongyloides in the

chemical test group compared to the herbal test group. There seems to

be a significant difference in the load numbers between these two.

 

Muellerius (tapeworms) were found in 33% of the herbal group and in

36% of the chemical group. I do not feel the herbal treatment worked

significantly better. The load numbers in this graph are almost

identical. This may show that the herbal treatment does not have an

effect on this type of worm.

 

Dictyocaulus (lungworm) were found in 33% of the herbal group and in

42% of the chemical group. The chemical group not only had more

positives but two of the positives had greater numbers of worms. There

seems to be a significant difference between the two. I think that the

herbal offers some control and since low numbers are tolerable, this

may be good enough.

 

Monezia (tapeworm) were found in 0% of the herbal group and in 21% of

the chemical group. This is a significant difference and the herbal

offers good control.

 

Protostrongyloides (lungworms) were found in 33% of the herbal group

and in 50% of the Chemical group. The chemical group not only had more

positives but four of the positives had greater numbers of worms.

There seems to be a significant difference between the two. I think

that the herbal offers some control but I am not sure if it is good

enough.

 

Coccidia (a protozoa) were found in 67% of the herbal group and in 95%

of the chemical group. Coccidia are normal in low numbers in healthy

goats. The chemical group had 6 goats that had high numbers and the

herbal group had 4 that had high numbers. This may show that the

chemical group was less healthy because of the worm load it was

carrying. Many species are not pathagenic. Ten to 12 species occur in

goats in the U.S.

 

The herbal treatment appears to have great control over Strongyloides

and Monezia. It offered some control for Dictyocaulus and

Protostrongyloides. It did not control Coccidia or Muellerius.

Conclusion

 

I have concluded that herbal worming works better. Herbal always had

lower numbers of parasites than the chemical group. This shows that

herbal offers better control and can keep worm loads down to safe

numbers. Although all of the parasites were in lower quantities in the

herbal group, the coccidia had plentiful numbers throughout both test

groups.

 

Chemical control, even though it had higher parasite numbers than

herbal, had some advantages. Chemical wormer is only needed every

three months and can be poured on the back (as compared to dosing in

grain weekly). The disadvantages are that it may cause damage to the

brain tissue and does not maintain control of worms.

 

Herbal worming also has advantages. It offers better control of worms

and does not have any hard chemicals. Some disadvantages are that it

needs to be given once a week in some grain or other carrier. This is

better for a milking herd because they get grain twice a day during

milking.

 

I have decided to use herbal wormer for my herd of dairy goats. I have

a small herd so this will not be a problem. I give my goats grain

regularly so I can give them the herbal with it.

 

For a large herd of milkers kept in one pasture, I would recommend

herbal worming. The milkers can get it in their grain. The pasture

would be lacking in naturally occurring herbs and the goats would be

continually re-infecting themselves.

 

For a large herd without milkers that can be rotated through pastures,

I would recommend chemical wormers. There may not be enough herbs out

in the pastures so I would worm them just before they are shifted to a

new pasture every three months. This would leave the worms behind so

numbers would stay low.

 

For a small herd with no milkers on rotating pastures I would not worm

at all because they can forage for de-worming herbs. If there was no

herbs I would use chemical just before they are shifted to a new

pasture every three months.

 

For a small herd with milkers I would use herbal wormer in their grain.

 

On a working dairy, the goats should get herbal for top performance.

Dairy goats should have very low numbers of parasites so they can give

full milk. These goats can get the herbal with their grain.

 

Pet goats do not necessarily get grain so chemical wormer would

probably be best for them. Keep a calendar to stay on schedule.

 

Goats that are out on the range should probably be given no wormer at

all. In the wild, they get all their nutrients from plants and herbs.

Some herbs have de-worming activity and goats will especially look for

these. You may wish to worm once a year before breeding season.

 

We still need to know how herbal and chemical wormers control in the

long term. Are there problems with resistance to chemicals? I would

like to make my study go for a year if possible. This would test the

wormers to see which offers better control in the long term. I would

do this by looking at samples every 3 months and make graphs of worms

loads. I may need to rate the herbal by the eggs that are shed because

the herbs are killing the worms before they become adults.

 

Acknowledgments

 

I would like to thank the following people for helping me on my

science project. Amie Allred and Aaron Quigly for helping me collect

the samples, Karen Allred for letting me use her herd of goats and for

helping with the herbal treatments, Dr. Mike for helping me get the

vet supplies, Mom for buying the Fecalizers and the solution and

driving me every Saturday to do the treatments, and Hoegger Supply for

supplying the herbal worming powder. Last, but not least, I would like

to give major thanks to all the goats who put up with people catching

their berries, feeding them weird foods and pouring stuff down their

backs. They did a great job. Extra special thanks to Suzzy for pooping

on command every hour for 15 hours.

 

Bibliography

 

De Baïracli Levy, Juliette The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm and

Stable, 1984, Faber and Faber, London · Boston

 

Guss, Samuel Management and Diseases of Dairy Goats 1977, Dairy Goat

Journal Publishing Corporation

 

Hendrix, Charles Diagnostic Veterinary Parasitology 2nd Ed. 1998

Mosby, Inc.

 

McClelland, G. Medical Entomology - An Ecological Perspective 11th Ed.

1990 University of California, Davis, CA 95616

 

Merck Veterinary Manual, 7th Edition 1991, Merck & Co., Inc. Rathway,

N.J., U.S.A.

 

Sloss, M., R Kemp & A Zajac Veterinary Clinical Parasitology 6th

Ed.1994, Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa

 

 

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