I recently took a job as a vet tech at the emergency clinic; one of the perks is that I can run fecals on my goats. :biggrin I have been spot-checking everyone, and they look pretty good. I use a dime-sized sample, and on my worst slide I found 5 eggs that I thought were hookworms. One slide had one coccidia oocyst, and another had one hookworm egg. Do I worm? As a small animal vet tech, I am used to calling a sample ~positive~ with only a single egg noted, and then worming the pet. My goats haven't been wormed since the spring. Donna
5 eggs on a dime, would make me want to run another fecal again maybe a few hours later, and maybe again the next day.......if I were to see about the same each time ( 5 or more ) and especially if it was on a young goat, or a just kidded doe....it would be getting close for me to worm here. But I am in the south where worms can play havac from time to time. 1 cocci doesn't bother me too much at any given time, but in a kid, I would check them more often to see that cocci numbers are staying low. Edited; Since you are gonna be there doing this at work, I would do fecals often. I seem to get my highest egg counts from the early morning poops, so that is when I try to pick up my samples to look at.....Since different regions of the country can pose different worm problems, you will need to make some adjustments to your worming program accordingly. Whenever you do worm, then check your fecals after a few days to see if your wormer is working for you. Check around 10, 20 , and 30 days later to see what you've been able to accomplish. Don't be to surprised if you see worm counts bounce up and down like a cycle, without you doing anything to affect it. This cycle appears to be natural and normal at my house. I look at each goat and how healthy they appear, and act, and milk, and so on, when looking at their egg counts......and I take that into consideration when I'm looking at their fecal counts......some goats can just handle higher worm loads better than others, and you will learn in time which ones need more attention.
Thank you for the advice. The ones I checked were the 1st poops of the morning- I will continue to bring a few samples in with me each time I go in to work. I live in East Texas and I know parasites are bad down here- luckily my goats have over 100 acres of forested browse, so they rarely eat off the ground. The goat with the 5 eggs noted is a 4 year old Nubian who I just dried off- she seemed thin but was giving 2 quarts of milk to me in the morning, and nursing 2 hungry boer cross doelings, so I didn't know if she had a high worm load- she had been wormed at kidding with cydectin. The goat with the one coccidia oocyst is an 8 month old Alpine wether- he seems a bit smallish and although he was fed a medicated feed at weaning, he is the smallest goat of my spring bottle babies- but maybe it was because I weaned him earlier than I should have- (10 weeks old- he was browsing well and eating feed, and I was buying milk which was getting expensive).....other than looking thinner than I think he should be, his poops are normal, eyelids are nice and pink, appetite healthy. This weekend I am working the graveyard shift, so I will bring in some poops from later in the day to compare. Donna
On the 4 yr old....I would worm her out good, before re-breeding her if she hasn't already been bred. If she is bred, they are some folks on here that can help you with worming her.....you've got to be more careful with worming pregnant doe's. Your gonna be doing the right thing by learning as much as you can at work......most likely the vet will help you learn how to get consistant results each time. Try to get your technique down to where you can trust the results of each fecal that you run. East TX......yea, you need to learn as much as you can about worming........fortunately for you, there are a lot of folks on here from your area, and they will be a great bank of info for you as you care for your goats.
LOL- help from the vets at work! They wouldn't know what to do for a goat- that is another reason I took the job, so I could figure out who to use for my goats and the rest of my animals (as you probably know, there are good vets and the then there are........well, not so good vets!) Most of the ER vets I work with are strictly small animal. I've been reading fecals on dogs and cats for 14 years, so I've got the technique down, plus I took Parasitology in college (lots of years ago), but I do need more practice reading goat fecals. And, yes......my Nubian has already been bred, so I would appreciate any advice on what to use for a wormer. Thanks for your advice! Donna
You better wait for someone with a lot more experience than I , before worming that preg. doe...... Vets-----I used to work for a vet too a long time ago. He too is a small animal specialist, and claims he don't know anything about goats. He is faking it to some degree though, cause he don't want to get into it. The best thing here is this......they can get meds for you that you really need, and most of them have the equipment to work on a goat if need be. There are some medical principles that apply across the board with all animals, so even a small animal vet. can be of some help if they just will.......something is better than nothing if you have no one else to turn to.
I would ask if you can purchase a chambered slide, or purchase one for yourself..McMasters, and also a good identification book so you know what strongied you have because it ain't hookworm just the family. With a chambered slide you can multiply out and use the 300 to 3000 numbers I do...300 spring and summer worm...3000 fall and winter worm. Because the summer worms HC are killers, and the cool weather worms strongieds are rarely seen and the girls are usually bred, and pregnancy seems to keep numbers lower...knowing of course you need a pre pregnancy worming to kill arrested larve you don't want to overwinter, and can't see on fecal. Vicki
....ohhhhh.......I was wondering why other folks had such larger numbers than mine....I don't think the clinic would pay for it, but I can certainly get a chambered slide, for myself- since for now I do not need to purchase the whole microscope deal. And the parasitology books at work aren't very helpful. Saving up for Goat Medicine, meanwhile looking at all the online sites for worm identification and the Dairy Goat 101 articles here. Donna
I'm with Vicki - the McMasters slides are the way to go. I think it's the only way to actually calculate eggs per gram, which is what all of the worming advice/info/research uses as a basis. It would be worth asking the vet if they would buy them, if the do any livestock work, but if not, you can get them from chalex.
