| Organic meat sheep producers have a very limited array of efficient alternative drugs and limited access to synthetic drugs for controlling internal parasites. The use of targeted selective treatments, e.g., treating only the lambs that cannot cope with infection, would be of interest. The difficulty is to identify those lambs in need of treatment. FAMACHA© (based on an anaemia indicator) has been used with success in tropical areas where the bloodsucker worm Haemonchus contortus is the main gastrointestinal strongyle. The appearance of the wool is sometimes used to determine the necessity of treatment, and a spectrofluorometric analysis of the wool was tested. Shepherds may also detect lambs with poor, medium and good body conditions, on the basis of... |
