Using FEC as a monitoring tool

• Evidence-based treatment
  • establish whether roundworms are the cause of diarrhoea and ill-thrift
  • confirm the presence of adult roundworms
• Testing could save the time and costs of worming sheep if roundworms are not the problem

Pooled FEC

• Regular pooled egg counts ~2-4 weeks apart
  • Frequent monitoring can provide an indication of which fields are more wormy
• Highlights the optimal time for treatment
  • Can be useful to improve flock productivity
• Correct timing = greatest benefit from wormer treatments

Pooled FEC

• Targeting individual animals or groups
• Treating only those animals which need reduces excess chemical usage and costs

Pooled FEC
Individual FEC

• Only viable test to check if anthelmintic treatments are working
• Avoid wasting money & labor on treatments which are ineffective
• Wormer resistance is common – understand what works on your farm to treat effectively

Pooled or individual FEC

• Eggs may not be present in the faeces before clinical disease – for example Nematodirus where the immature worms cause the greatest disease
• Other tools (e.g. weightgain) are better suited to monitoring productivity
•  A single faecal egg count only provides a snapshot of what is happening…frequent testing is required to maximize benefit
• Egg counts can’t tell you which types of worms are present. Some species produce more eggs per adult worm (e.g. Haemonchus; barber’s pole worm) which can complicate interpretation of results
• Egg count results do not always reflect the number of adult worms in the sheep.
  • Different types of worms producing different numbers of eggs
  • Sheep’s immunity can impact the number of eggs in faeces and production impact e.g. around lambing in ewes (peri-parturient relaxation of immunity)
  • High egg counts don’t always mean low productivity. Some animals can maintain production despite harboring worms (resilience)