Abstract
<p><strong>Background:</strong> Goats are increasingly being used as surgical models in animal experiments. Some ruminant parasitological studies require collecting adult nematodes directly from the abomasum of donor animals. A methodology to collect those adult worms <em>in vivo</em> could avoid the unnecessary sacrifice of donor animals. <strong>Objective:</strong> To describe an abomasotomy technique to obtain adult <em>Haemonchus contortus </em>from live goats and evaluate the immediate post-surgical recovery time. <strong>Methodology:</strong> Nine worm-free adult goats were infected with 6000 <em>H. contortus </em>L3. The monospecific infection was confirmed on day 28 post-infection. The anesthetic procedure included fentanyl (10 μg * kg BW<sup>-1</sup> load dose (LD) and 10 μg * kg BW<sup>-1</sup> hour in constant-rate-infusion (CRI), lidocaine (2 mg * kg LD<sup>-1</sup> and 50 μg * kg BW<sup>-1 </sup>minute CRI), ketamine (1.5 mg * kg<sup>-1</sup> and 50 μg * kg BW<sup>-1</sup> min CRI) and propofol (4 mg * kg LD<sup>-1</sup> and 0.4 mg * kg BW<sup>-1</sup> min CRI). The surgical protocol consisted of eight “surgical time-points”. Purposeful animal movement in response to surgical stimulation, or any changes in the autonomic response (&gt; 20% from baseline values of HR and arterial blood pressure (SAP, MAP, and DAP)) were used as criteria to identify trans-surgical nociception. Post-surgical pain was evaluated once daily with the wound healing evaluation. <strong>Results:</strong> The surgical protocol lasted 1 h, allowing the recovery of adult <em>H. contortus </em>from live goats. The anesthetic protocol successfully controlled trans-surgical pain, with only two animals crossing the HR threshold (&gt;20%) from T2 to T6. Post-surgical recovery (“time to extubation” and “time to standing”) was achieved before 1 h, while animals consumed water after only 4 h post-surgery. Goats did not require rescue analgesia, and suture withdrawal was achieved 7 days post-surgery without complications. <strong>Impications:</strong> The abomasotomy technique here described can be used for parasitological studies in small ruminants when the collection of nematodes is required from live animals. <strong>Conclusions:</strong> The anesthetic and surgical protocol here described is a viable and rapid alternative for the collection of nematodes from the abomasum of live goats with minimal pain and rapid postsurgical recovery. </p>
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