be easy to identify these animals that need to be culled. Also, if you have records, most of these wormy animals may have been sired by one buck who needs to be contributing to the meat pool, not the genetic pool. Doing fecal egg counts on bucks can help determine which ones will help to sire resistant progeny. Nutrition is also important as it is needed to fuel the immune sys-
tem — the goat’s main defense against worms. The immune system generally gets the nutrients that are left over after other bodily demands are satisfied, such as maintenance, lactation, gestation and growth. So, thin and unthrifty animals are very susceptible to worms because they have a compromised immune system. If there are only a few unthrifty animals, and everyone else looks OK, those animals are candidates for WBD (will be delicious-cull). It not only takes protein and energy for fueling the immune sys- tem, but minerals are also important, especially copper, zinc, sele- nium, magnesium and cobalt (component of vitamin B-12). Vitamins A, D and E also support immunity.
Rotation grazing is also an important step in preventing worms. The eggs in feces require five days to develop from an egg to an in- fective L3 larvae when the daytime temperatures is ideal (85-90°F). It takes about eight days at 70°F.
The fecal pellet develops a hard shell several days after being pooped out because it dries out and the infective larvae cannot es- cape. It takes rain — a couple inches in a month or several days of heavy dew — to soften the shell and allow the infective larvae to es- cape from the fecal pellet.
The larvae are like a canoe without a paddle, allowing the rain- water or dew to take it wherever it will. Generally, most of the larvae are concentrated in the lower 2-3 inches of grass, hoping your goat comes along and bites the grass off. So, if we do not graze lower than 4 inches, we will avoid picking up most of the infective larvae.
April 2025 | Goat Rancher
13
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32
