D. Cazac, N.C. Whitley, D.J. Jackson, and B.J. Rude
University of Maryland Eastern Shore, Princess
Anne, MD
Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS
Previous studies have demonstrated that forages rich in condensed tannins, such as sericea lespedeza, can control gastrotestinal nematode infection (internal parasites) in goats, therefore the objective of three experiments (EXP) was to determine the in?uence of high tannin grain sorghum on parasites in goats. Male and female naturally infected Boer crossbred animals were used at approximately 124 days of age in EXP 1 (16 animals) or at 160 days of age in EXP 2 (24 goats) and 22 male goats at 259 days of age were used in EXP 3. Animals were removed from pasture and placed on concrete slatted (EXP1) or expanded metal ?ooring (EXP 2 and 3). Goats were fed diets containing high or low tannin grain sorghum (equal numbers of goats per treatment). Packed cell volume (PCV; sera/packed red blood cells*100%), FEC and FAMACHA® eyelid color scores (EYE; 1 to 5 with 1 = red and 5 = white; EXP 1 only) were recorded the first day of sorghum feeding and then every 7 days for 21 days (or 14 days for EXP 3). Animals were dewormed when PCV dropped below 20%. For EXP 1, percentage of animals dewormed (14%), FEC (620 eggs per gram (epg)), PCV (14%) and EYE (3.2) were not in?uenced by treatment . As expected, EYE and PCV were negatively related (when PCV decreased, FAMACHA® eyelid score increased). For EXP 2, there was no in?uence of treatment on PCV (28.8%) or FEC, however, there was an effect of day in which all animals had higher FEC on d0 (1956) than any other sampling day. In EXP 3, again, there was no effect of treatment on FEC (2992 epg) or PCV (25%). Although high tannin forages such as sericea lespedeza have been found to reduce FEC in small ruminants, in the present studies, high tannin grain sorghum (which may contain a different type of tannin than sericea) did not influence FEC or PCV in goats.
This abstract was presented at the Annual
meeting of the Southern Section of the American Society of Animal Science, Mobile,
Alabama, February 2007.
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