Integrating the control of helminths in dairy cattle: deworming, rotational grazing and nutritional pellets with parasiticide fungi

Publication date: Available online 22 January 2020Source: Veterinary ParasitologyAuthor(s): Mathilde Voinot, Cristiana Cazapal-Monteiro, José Ángel Hernández, Antonio Miguel Palomero, Fabián Leonardo Arroyo, Jaime Sanchís, José Pedreira, Rita Sánchez-Andrade, Adolfo Paz-Silva, María Sol AriasAbstractThirty-two Friesian cattle under a leaders/followers four-day rotation and passing eggs of trematodes and gastrointestinal nematodes (GIN) were studied in two trials for the integrated control of these helminths over two years. In the first trial, the effect of rotational pasturing was assessed on a group of leaders (milking cows, G-L1) and followers (dried-off cows and heifers, G-F1) supplemented daily with commercial nutritional pellets. In the second trial, leaders (G-L2) and followers (G-F2) were maintained under a rotational pasturing regime; the cows received daily commercial pelleted feed and heifers pellets manufactured with a blend of parasiticide fungi (3 × 105 chlamydospores of both Mucor circinelloides and Duddingtonia flagrans/kg pellet). Deworming via closantel and albendazole was performed in cows in each trial at the beginning of their drying periods, and fourteen days later, the fecal egg-count reductions (FECR) of Calicophoron daubneyi and GIN were from 94-100% (average 98%), while the percentages of reduction of cattle shedding eggs (CPCR) were from 50-100% (average 77% and 82%, respectively). The heifers were dewormed one time only, at the beginnin...
Source: Veterinary Parasitology - Category: Veterinary Research Source Type: research