Abstract
Gastro-intestinal parasites, especially Haemonchus contortus, limit the profitability and expansion of the meat goat industry in many states. The objective of the Western MD Pasture Based Meat Goat Production test was to evaluate the performance of meat goat bucklings (mostly Kiko and Kiko crosses), consuming a pasture-based diet, with natural exposure to gastro-intestinal parasites. From 2006–2016, the FAMACHA© system was used to determine need for deworming (scores of 4 and 5) in all kids. Therefore, goats were handled bi-weekly to determine body weights (BW), FAMACHA© scores (FAM) and fecal egg counts (FEC) in eggs per gram (epg), as well as other possible indicators of internal parasitism. Adjacent FAMACHA© scores were used to form 3 groups; kids not requiring treatment (FAM1; FAM 1 and 2), kids intermediate (FAM 3) and kids requiring treatment (FAM 5; FAM 4 and 5). Differences in mean log-transformed FEC (LFEC) and ADG were determined using the PROC MIXED procedure of SAS and included year, FAMACHA© score and FAMACHA© score by year interaction effects. There was an exponential increase in LFEC and decrease in ADG with increasing FAM score groups for most years of the test. LFEC were significantly different for FAM1, FAM3, and FAM5 groups (P<0.05) in 2008 (79.3 ± 1.1, 567.8 ± 1.3, and 2912.6 ± 1.8 epg, respectively), 2009 (102.7 ± 1.1, 226.0 ± 1.3, and 907.5 ± 1.8 epg, respectively) and in 2013 (125.3 ± 1.1, 290.0 ± 1.2, and 1282.3 ± 1.7 epg, respectively). In 2015, FAM1 FEC (328 ± 1.1 epg) was lowest (P<0.01) and FAM3 (714 ± 1.3 epg) tended (P=0.07) to be lower than FAM5 FEC (3,836 ± 2.4 epg). ADG were significantly different for FAM1, FAM3 and FAM5 groups (P<0.05) in 2016 only (61.5 ± 5.6, 15.3 ± 11.0, and -48.5 ± 29 g/d, respectively) with varying results in the other years. Consistency among years in differences in LFEC and ADG among FAMACHA scores varied but in general increased linearly across groups.
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