Project Overview
Annual Reports
Commodities
- Agronomic: cotton, millet, rye, sorghum (milo), wheat, grass (misc. perennial), hay
- Animals: goats, sheep
Practices
- Animal Production: parasite control, feed/forage
- Education and Training: extension, workshop
- Pest Management: biological control
- Production Systems: agroecosystems, holistic management
Abstract:
Use of targeted deworming using the FAMACHA system to identify heavily parasitized sheep and goats greatly expanded over the last 4 years, with over 16,000 cards sold at producer workshops held in most of the states of the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands for on-farm use. Feeding of copper oxide wire particles (COWP) and grazing or feeding of dried sericea lespedeza were validated as highly effective novel anti-parasitic agents and have greatly increased in use by sheep and goat producers in the US, reducing their dependence upon chemical anthelmintics.
Project objectives:
1. Increase level of adoption of sustainable GIN control strategies recently implemented in the southeastern USA and PR by broadly disseminating state-of-the-art knowledge and procedures.
2. Investigate use of novel non-chemical approaches for controlling GIN in small ruminants.
3. Develop and test sustainable small ruminant parasite control systems integrating conventional and novel GIN control strategies, conduct cost-benefit analyses, and assess the sustainability of these systems