It’s easy to check your goats’ mucus membranes using the FAMACHA system.
SUE WEAVER
Barber’s pole worm is a major problem for keepers of sheep and goats throughout the world. Bloodsucking gut-dwellers, barber’s pole worms (Haemonchus contortus) cause serious anemia and death if not aggressively treated. Females are prolific egg-layers, laying as many as 10,000 eggs per day, so large worm loads develop rapidly. Unfortunately, because of the overuse of dewormers that control this worm, resistance is a major problem.
The FAMACHA system (it stands for FAffa MAlan CHArt) was developed by three scientists in South Africa and introduced to North America by the American Consortium for Small Ruminant Parasite Control. It helps producers single out individuals for treatment by matching the color of an animal’s eye mucous membranes to a chart showing five color categories indicating level of anemia. The colors go from category 1 (cherry red; not anemic) to category 5 (white; severely anemic).
Deworming only those animals that require treatment greatly decreases the development of resistance, because eggs produced by the few resistant worms that survive treatment will be greatly outnumbered by eggs shed by animals that weren’t dewormed. When all the animals in a flock or herd are dewormed and moved to clean pastures, only resistant worms that survive treatment will produce eggs to produce the next generation of worms.
Producers who wish to use FAMACHA should ideally seek training in its use. Contact your veterinarian, your cooperative extension agent, or ACSRPC (www.acsrpc.org) for information about workshops near you. The University of Rhode Island’s video, “Why and How to Do FAMACHA Scoring,” is another way to learn the basics (online at bit.ly/2QpDxe1).