Dipsticks take on worms

Sheep farmers could soon welcome a quick and easy test for barber's pole worm thanks to research from the Australian Sheep Industry Cooperative Research Centre.

The test, which detects blood in the sheep's faeces to identify whether barber's pole worms are present and to what level, is going into a field validation phase in Spring 2007 and producers who have had problems with barber’s pole worm are being encouraged to participate in the trial.

The breakthrough for a new test came when Drs Leo le Jambre and Ian Colditz, Senior Research Scientists with CSIRO Livestock Industries in Armidale, asked, "Why don't we just test for blood in the sheep's faeces rather than count worm eggs?" The scientists have since devised a method to do just that.

Unlike other sheep intestinal worms, infections with barber's pole worm can rise very rapidly resulting in deaths only weeks after a drench due to massive blood loss from these blood-sucking worms. This test can detect dangerous burden’s of barber’s pole worm before the traditional worm egg count test, which relies on the worms being old enough to lay eggs.

Dr Brown Besier, Principal Veterinary Parasitologist from DAFWA and Parasite Management Program Leader for the Sheep CRC said, "In southern Australia this is a sporadic event happening in some years when the combination of rain and temperature is just right. It often catches farmers off-guard in early summer and late autumn, when there can be considerable sheep losses. However, in the summer rainfall areas of Queensland and northern NSW, barber’s pole worm is responsible for many sheep deaths every year."

The new test will involve farmers collecting 1 or 2 pellets of fresh dung from the ground from up to 20 sheep in each mob – a simple job and most farmers will be familiar with this from taking samples for worm egg counts. Some simple mixing and measuring steps follow with no microscopes or special skills needed. By the time the producer then has a cuppa, the samples are ready to read using a dipstick that detects blood. Supporting information will be provided to assist the sheep producer with decisions on whether to drench now or how soon to retest the mob.

In less than an hour, and at a much lower cost than conventional worm egg counting and larval differentiation tests, a sheep producer can have results of the level of barber’s pole worm infection for about half a dozen mobs without having to leave the farm or handle the sheep.

On-farm testing will dramatically reduce the time taken for results on barber’s pole worm burdens to be known from over a week to less than an hour. With such affordability and ease, many more producers will be able to know the barbers pole worm burden in more of their mobs, leading to fewer sheep deaths and less unnecessary drenching.

Producers interested to participate in the validation trials, by providing dung samples, should contact Deborah Maxwell on (02) 6773 3597 by mid-August.