Fecal egg counts continued to increase. For the samples collected on July 17, fecal egg counts ranged from 133 to 12800 epg and averaged 2727 ± 2526 epg. The median egg count was 2033 epg. Two weeks ago, egg counts averaged 1680 ± 1607 epg and the median was 1338 epg.
Despite the high egg counts, eight (8) bucks had fecal egg counts below 500 epg and twenty had egg counts below 1000 epg. However, thirty-one (31) bucks had fecal egg counts above 2000 epg, which is usually a disqualifying egg count for the test.
In addition to being a lot of variability among individual goats, there is also considerable variability among consignments. On July 17, all of the bucks in the Ballinger (KY), Barnes (KY), and Heise (PA) consignments had fecal egg counts below 2000 epg. All of the Barnes and Heise bucks and three out of the four Ballinger bucks are still meeting the test standards for average and high fecal egg count.
All of the bucks were given a copper oxide wire particle (COWP) bolus on July 17. The fecal egg counts from the July 31 samples will be compared to the fecal egg counts from July 17 to determine the effect of copper oxide wire particles (COWP). COWP's have been shown to reduce barber pole worm infections in kids and lambs.
Download July 17 FEC (d-42) Report
In addition to being a lot of variability among individual goats, there is also considerable variability among consignments. On July 17, all of the bucks in the Ballinger (KY), Barnes (KY), and Heise (PA) consignments had fecal egg counts below 2000 epg. All of the Barnes and Heise bucks and three out of the four Ballinger bucks are still meeting the test standards for average and high fecal egg count.
Download July 17 FEC (d-42) Report
