The supplementation of pumpkin seeds as an alternative to reducing parasite burden in naturally infected lambs
Loading...
Date
2024-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The Ohio State University
Abstract
Parasite management is a major concern for the sheep industry because of the increased cost associated with treatment as well as the growing risk of parasite resistance to common small ruminant (i.e., sheep and goat) anthelmintic products. At the same time, fall agritourism results in many pumpkins going to waste after the season concludes. Pumpkin seeds have demonstrated anthelmintic properties in vitro that may be applied on-farm to control for parasitic infection. Therefore, my objective was to observe changes in parasite burden due to pumpkin seed (PS) supplementation, estimated by measuring lamb body weight (BW), fecal egg count (FEC), FAMACHA© eye score (FAM), and packed cell volume (PCV). I hypothesized that the supplementation of PS would decrease the parasite burden within the host. Each treatment group had 5 pens of 2 sheep each (n=10/treatment) and all sheep were fed a common pelleted diet with chopped hay. The control group (CON) was supplemented 0.21 kg/hd per day of WSC while the pumpkin treatment group supplemented 0.45 kg/hd of PS per day. These treatments were isocaloric and limit fed for four weeks to prevent confounding by refusals. Analysis of the data included a fixed effect of pen and treatment, random effect of lamb, and repeated measure of week. Lamb FAM and log(FEC) did not differ between groups, with FAM (1.08 and 1.02; P=0.17), and log(FEC) (2.94 and 2.96; P=0.90) for CON and PS, respectively. However, lamb PCV was greater (P<0.01) for PS (38.7%) than CON (36.4%). Lamb BW was lesser for those lambs in the PS treatment when compared with CON [(40.2 kgs Vs 42.4 kgs), P<0.01)]. Furthermore, when monitored one month after the completion of PS supplementation, there was numerical evidence for compensatory gain as the daily weight gain tended to be greater for PS lambs when (0.25 kg /day) compared to CON lambs (0.19 kg /day; P=0.14). Under the conditions of this experiment, parasite burden did not differ between treatments. The lack of difference may be attributed to decreased feed intake of PS and behavioral variation within pen. More work is needed to find a preferred method of including PS in a diet to improve feed intake and thus treatment efficacy. Additionally, the variability of FEC urges experiments involving the need for fecal analysis to include more regular collection intervals to ensure that changes in parasite burdens are captured accurately.
Description
CFAES Undergraduate Research Forum 1st Place