Incidence of gastrointestinal parasites in ruminants of organized farm in Sikkim

Abstract

A study was conducted to determine the incidence of gastrointestinal parasitic infections in ruminants of different
organized farms of Sikkim from April 2009 to March 2010. Ruminants (411— 253 cattle, 141 goats and 17 sheep)    were included in the study using standard parasitological procedure. The study showed that the overall infection rate was 38.44% with 21.34%, 63.83% and 82.35% in cattle, goats and sheep, respectively, either in single or mixed infection with a mean number of eggs per gram of faeces (EPG) as 1050.50. The incidence was significantly lower in Government dairy farm (9.74%) and goat farm (62.11%) than that of privately managed cattle farm (22.51%) and goat farm (67.39%). The highest prevalence was noticed       in Gharpala sheep (82.35%). Strongyles and strongyloides were the most prevalent parasites encountered in the area.    A higher rate was found in small ruminants than in cattle, and  a greater proportion of study animals (17.52%) had severe EPG compared with study animals with low (8.03%) to moderate EPG (12.89%). Coproculture studies showed that the Haemonchus contortus was the most prevalent nematode followed by Oesophagostomum spp. and Bunostomum spp. in both the farms. Overall age-wise prevalence was 44.78, 31.58 and 40.76% in the animals below 1 year, within 1–2 year and above 2 years of age respectively. The seasonal prevalence of infections indicated that the gastrointestinal helminth infection was highest during summer (51.96%) followed by autumn (47.01%) and spring (34.38%). The infection rate was significantly lower in winter (11.39%). These findings may be useful to formulate an appropriate control strategy for gastrointestinal parasites of ruminants in Sikkim.