Determination of a Periparturient Rise in the Excretion of Giardia Cysts and Nematode Eggs in South American Camelids

Principal investigator:

Lora R Ballweber, DVM

Sheep, llamas, and alpacas share a wide variety of gastrointestinal nematode parasites. In sheep, some adult animals lose immunity to their worms around the time of parturition and during lactation. When this happens, worms they have ingested during grazing can easily mature and lay eggs. These eggs are then passed with the feces of the animal onto pasture. Many worms laying eggs at the same time results in relatively high, persistent fecal worm egg counts and massive pasture contamination. This, in turn, increases the chance of parasite transmission to the lambs. To control this, anthelmintic treatment of the dam is often needed at or near parturition. It has not been clear if this increased fecal worm egg shedding occurs in llamas/alpacas. Therefore, to investigate this, the effect of date of parturition on changes in fecal nematode egg counts was evaluated. No increased shedding of eggs was detected. This indicates that parasite control programs for llamas/alpacas may not need to include anthelmintic treatment at or near parturition in contrast to those programs designed for sheep.