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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Fwd: [grazersedge] Parasite Control Update - LONG

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Fwd: [grazersedge] Parasite Control Update - LONG
  • Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2002 14:19:39 -0700

Mark wrote:

I've saved the following for future discussion as it will be important for
homesteaders involved with small livestock production for meat. A while back I asked about raising sheep and goats for meat and it appears that Boer goats and
Gulf Coast sheep will be the easiest to raise with the leat maintenance required, i.e. no wormers and no supplemental feed grain. My source for GC sheep
lets his flock select naturally for parasite resistance. What about nematophagic fungi? What are sources for this and how well does it work and how difficult is it to get them established? Any references would be helpful.

Pasture rotation, co-grazing with cattle/horses, introduction of
nematophagic fungi are all management tools that can be used to help
diminish parasite problems with sheep and goats, but some - particularly
rotation - won't/can't work well for small producers, as you would have to
have exceedingly long (3-6 months or longer, depending on temp & moisture)
pasture/paddock rest periods in order for nematode larval populations to
die out.

Goats and sheep are not small cows. I've rarely, if ever, seen 'worms'
actually kill a cow; impact production, yes, but kill, no. However, I'd
say that well over 85% of the sheep and goats that I've seen over the past
25 years have been victims of parasitism.
It's largely a management problem. Both species evolved in environments
that were not necessarily conducive to heavy parasite burdens. Goats are
principally browsers, consuming mostly leaves, buds, twigs, but once
they're relegated to having to graze(that's where all the feces and
parasite larvae/ovae are!) they rapidly become heavily
parasitized. Similar deal with sheep; they do well in areas where 'it's a
long way between blades of grass', but here in the Southeast, that's
usually not the case, and with heavy stocking rates on small pastures, we
rapidly see infective larval populations reach epidemic levels.
One thing that I tell my students(I teach a parasitology course to
AHT/Pre-Vet students) is that the old-time shepherds really had something
going by bringing the sheep into the 'fold' at night - in addition to being
able to better protect them from predators, it also got them off the
pastures when dew was heavy on the forages - the infective nematode larvae
crawl up the blades of grass in the dew film, and are just waiting there
for that goat/sheep to come along and ingest them. As the sun comes up,
and the dew dries off, those larvae migrate back down to the soil interface
and are less available for ingestion. It's a management tool that's
largely overlooked today. Don't know if those shepherds 'knew' what they
were doing, but it helped, regardless.


Louis L. "Lucky" Pittman, Jr., DVM
Veterinary Pathologist/Asst. Prof.
Murray St. Univ.-Breathitt Veterinary Ctr.
Hopkinsville, KY




--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/pcwiki/index.php/london






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