Parasite Management Goals

"We want to maximize the health of each individual animal in our herd with the minimum use of deworming medications required. We want to minimize parasites developing resistance to the deworming medications being used. We want to identify bloodlines that have more natural resistance to parasites and selectively breed to expand, enhance and improve natural resistance to parasites in our future herd. We want to be more knowledgeable in treating sick animals in the future by better understanding if parasites exist and to what extent before we start treating blindly."

For us to successfully reach these goals, we will need to do the following:

• We will not deworm on a regular schedule just because a specific number of days have gone by.
• We will need to quickly determine how successful our dewormer medication is working after deworming has occurred.
• We will need to monitor our animals for signs of harmful effects from parasites on a regular basis but minimize the personal time required.
• We will need to determine how to identify individual animals that need deworming.
• We need to determine how to identify if the current dewormer medication is still effective.
• We need to determine what type of parasites are causing health problems so we can use the appropriate medication.
• We need to track the parasite status of each animal on a regular basis to identify animals that are more resistant to parasites or animals that are more likely to have health problems due to parasites.

Our Parasite Management Program will successfully reach these goals for us and give us a potential advantage in the future because we will be able to possibly offer animals that are more resistant to parasites rather than just having pedigrees with lots of Ennobled bloodlines shown.