Journal details
Effects of rearing system and herd size on the prevalence of haemonchosis in goats at Rajshahi, Bangladesh
Published Date: 30 Dec 2016
Keywords: Haemonchosis, prevalence, rearing system, herd size, goats.
Lovely Nahar1*, Md. Motahar Hussain Mondal2 , Md. Omar Faruque3 , Md. Jalal Uddin Sarder1 , Syed Sarwar Jahan1 and Moizur Rahman1 1Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, University of Rajshahi, Bangladesh 2Department of Parasitology, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Bangladesh 3Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh, Banglades
Abastract:
Context: Haemonchosis is a predominant helminthic disease, has detrimental effects on productive and reproductive performance of goat in Bangladesh. Objectives: The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of rearing system and herd size on the prevalence of haemonchosis of goats. Materials and Methods: The research activities were conducted at the laboratory of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science, University of Rajshahi during the period of one year from March, 2011 to February 2012. In this cross-sectional study, a total of 720 goats were randomly selected from the villages, farms, pastures, veterinary hospitals, abattoirs and examined for Haemonchus spp. infection. Goats were categorized into three according the rearing system such as intensive (N= 131), semi-intensive (N= 247) and extensive (N= 342). On the other hand, herd size of goats were grouped into small (1-5) (N=225), medium (6-10) (N=350) and large (>10) (N=145). About 363 faecal samples were collected, both direct smear and floatation methods were performed to identify the eggs of Haemonchus spp. A total of 357 abomasa were collected for the examination of contents of the abomasum and collection of adult worms to identify Haemonchus spp. Descriptive statistics was used to determine the prevalence of haemonchosis and Chi-square test (χ2) was used to look the significant difference between rearing system and herd size with haemonchosis of goats. Results: The study revealed that, the occurrence of Haemonchus spp. was higher in extensive rearing system (71.6%) compared to intensive rearing system (15.3%) followed by semi-intensive (61.1%) system. Goats of extensive and semi-intensive systems were more susceptible to helminth infection than those of intensive system Goats with small (1-5) herd group had a significantly low Haemonchus spp. infection rate (38.2%) as compared to medium (6-10) herd group (64.2%), whereas the large (above 10) herd group showed the highest prevalence (72.4%) of Haemonchus spp. infection. The data analysis indicated that haemonchosis was significantly (P<0.001) influenced by the rearing system and herd size of goats. Conclusion: The extensive rearing system and large herd size are the vital determinant in the occurrence of haemonchosis in goats. Further study can be carried out to determine the effect of haemonchosis in the production performance of goats.