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Funded Project |
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Funding Program:
Regional IPM Competitive Grants - Northeastern |
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Project Title:
Immune Status of Lambs, Born of Protein-Supplemented Periparturient Ewes and Creep-Grazed in Spring, Against Haemonchus contortus |
Project Directors (PDs):
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Lead State: WV Lead Organization: West Virginia University |
| Research Funding: $50,000 |
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Start Date: Jun-15-2007 End Date: Jun-14-2009 |
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Pests Involved: helminths, worms, parasites |
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Site/Commodity: sheep, livestock |
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Area of Emphasis: organic, nutrition, grazing |
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Summary:
Lamb production from pasture has great potential for expansion in the US Northeast. Combined with increased consumer appreciation for grass-fed animal products is an emerging demand for lamb by a rapidly increasing ethnic population. Since most sheep producers make frequent use of anthelmintics, resistant populations of gastrointestinal parasitic nematodes are now common. Although most conventional sheep producers believe that gastrointestinal parasites cannot be controlled with grazing management alone, preliminary studies with the sheep flock on the WVU Organic Research Farm gave favorable results. Following 5 years of observations we now propose to test protein supplementation of periparturient ewes, forage allowance and creep grazing of lambs as management regimes for the control of Haemonchus contortus (the most prevalent and lethal of the internal parasites for sheep) in lambs. In 2005 we compared 3-, 4-, 5- and 6-days of occupancy as part of pasture management to control Haemonchus contortus. In 2006 we supplemented periparturient ewes (2 wk before and 1 wk after lambing) with a high (18%) or low (12%) protein diet (fed at the rate of 270 g per head per d on a DM basis), introduced a creep gate and increased forage allowance (>2x the daily forage DM intake per animal). In spite of the fecal egg count being relatively high (>1000 egg/g), creep-grazed lambs showed no symptoms of nematode parasitism. Furthermore, the packed cell volume was within range for a normal lamb (30 - 33%), and daily gain was >150 g/d at weaning. The FAMACHA scores were between 2 and 3, with >50% of the lambs scoring a 2 or better indicating that the lambs were resilient to H. contortus parasitism (if score is greater than 3, dosing is recommended for lambs). Further testing of forage allowances and creep grazing of lambs born of protein-supplemented ewes in a replicated trial is essential to allow us to provide recommendations on the effectiveness of using grazing management alone to control Haemonchus contortus. Therefore we propose to randomly assign 64 ewes and their approximately 96 lambs to four replicates each of four treatments, two forage allowances (2.5x or 1.5x the daily forage DM intake) with creep or no creep in a replicated study. Animals will occupy a paddock for 7 days and each paddock will be rested for 28 days. This grazing management will assure that the pasture will have infective stage larvae. All animals will be weighed, sampled for feces and blood, and scored for body condition (ewes only) and anemic status, at start of experiment (early April), at weaning (late June), in August and late in October. Treatments will be compared using body weight changes, fecal egg counts, packed cell volume, body condition score (ewes) and FAMACHA scores. Forage allowances will be controlled by adjusting paddock area weekly. The experiment will be repeated a second year to evaluate year-to-year consistency of results. This field experiment, combined with experiments already conducted, will result in grazing management recommendations for both conventional and organic sheep producers in the US Northeast. We expect to provide a solution to deal with Haemonchus contortus parasitism using non chemical means.
Objectives: 1. Determine the effect of a supplemental protein diet fed to ewes during the periparturient period (three weeks before and two weeks after lambing) on the immune status of ewes and their lambs during the subsequent grazing season. 2. Determine the effect of creep grazing of lambs and herbage allowance on lamb performance (weight gain, immune status) and fecal egg count of H. contortus. Proposal Progress Report USDA CRIS data |
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