Tuesday 19 June 2012

Faecal egg counting? Get a life!

There are better ways of spending a Sunday, but using this microscope to count the number of nematodes and tiny insect eggs in sheep faeces is actually very important. Too many and the sheep will not prosper and will need to be chemically treated or the pasture ploughed. It is all part of a cycle. Infected sheep will infect the pasture with their droppings and this will go on to infect other sheep from the infected grass. In extreme cases the stock on the pasture will need to be replaced by cattle. These remedies are expensive so monitoring accurately the rate of infection is an important task.



2 comments:

  1. I think the word for this one is Ewe!

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  2. Interesting stuff. Who carries out these checks is it part of farming or is it a job for an inspector?

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