Association of ectoparasites and gastrointestinal endoparasites and body condition in sheep from four farms of the municipality of Valledupar, Cesar

Abstract

The current study was carried out to evaluate the association between the presence of gastrointestinal ectoparasites and endoparasites with the body condition in sheep sampled in 4 farms located in the municipality of Valledupar, Cesar. The type of study is descriptive, prospective and cross-sectional. Samples were taken from 111 sheep without exclusion of sex distributed in 4 farms in the municipality of Valledupar. The McMaster technique was used to determine the parasite loads of the sheep, later stool cultures were made to the samples that presented high parasite loads, the Baerman technique was applied in order to identify the parasites present in the samples and it was evaluated if there is a relationship between body condition/anemic state, body condition/parasite load and anemic state/ parasite load using the R statistical software and the Chi-square test as hypothesis test. The results show that the prevalence in this research was 84.6% of which 22.5% of the parasitized sheep had high loads, presenting a higher prevalence of the gastrointestinal endoparasite Haemonchus sp with a percentage of 9.9% (11/25), followed by Cooperia with 6.3% (7/25), Ostertagia sp 2.7% (3/25), Trichuris sp 0.9% (1/25) Strongyloides sp 0.9% (1/25), Eimeria 0.9% (1/25) and finally Trichostrongylus with a percentage 0.9% (1/25) for a total of 22.5% and biparasitism did not occur. No ectoparasites were found in sheep. The association between the body anemic status of the sheep determined by the Famacha technique and the presence of gastrointestinal parasites was p<0.05; while the relationship between the body condition in sheep and the parasites presented in them was p>0.05. In conclusion, it is established that if there is an association between Famacha and the presence of gastrointestinal endoparasites, the association between body condition and ovine parasites is not established, taking into account that Famacha turned out to be a useful technique to determine in which anemic state and which the body condition is not associated with the parasite load and is responsible for the fact that this technique is subjective and that therefore the decrease in the body mass and weight of the sheep may be due to various factors and not necessarily to the presence of gastrointestinal endoparasites and ectoparasites , considering that the latter were absent in this research.