ParaBoss News - May 2018 - Feature Articles

Feature articles

Sheep and wool prices are up, but has your worm control improved?

by Deborah Maxwell, ParaBoss Executive Officer

How can you safeguard your investment and get the best growth from your sheep?  >> Read more.

It’s time to review your flystrike management plan

from the FlyBoss web site

How effective have your fly treatment and prevention strategies been this season? Follow these steps and use these FlyBoss resources to review your annual flystrike management plan. >> Read More.

Long Wool treatments for lice—are they cost effective?

from the LiceBoss web site

Whether to treat lice infestations in long wool is complex.  Find out how the LiceBoss Long Wool Tool can help you to decide. >> Read more.

Assess worms in goats with body condition score

from the WormBoss web site

The thinness or fatness of your goats and how it changes over time can indicate if they are affected by worms. >> Read more.

Fast Fact: Prisoners prove cysts and tapeworms are the same parasite

Sheep measles is known by two scientific names, i.e. Cysticercus ovis and Taenia ovis because the cyst in the muscles (including the heart) of sheep and goats was described and named as C. ovis before it was known to be the immature stage of the sheep tapeworm of dogs.

The discovery that the taeniid type of tapeworm has two stages in its life cycle was confirmed by scientist, Friedrich Kuchenmeister, in about 1853 when he arranged for a prisoner to unknowingly be fed cysts of Taenia solium from a pig a few days before execution. At post-mortem, young tapeworms were found. He later repeated the experiment with another prisoner—this time a few weeks before execution—and fully mature worms were extracted at the post-mortem of the condemned prisoner. This proved that these tapeworms take advantage of the predator-prey relationship between humans and pigs, and by extrapolation, between humans and cattle, and between farm and feral dogs and sheep and goats.