Michigan State University Small Ruminant Team will be hosting a 4-week virtual program called “Sustainable management of internal parasites in sheep and goats in the Upper Midwest and Northeast USA”. The online sessions will be held via Zoom on Tuesday evenings from 7-9pm Eastern time (April 14, 21, 28, and May 5).
Its goal is to help you create an effective and sustainable program that will reduce animal health and productivity losses while minimizing the advance of resistance problems.
We will discuss which parasites are a problem in the Midwest/Northeast, risk factors for infection, grazing strategies to reduce parasite load, infection monitoring, effective drug treatments and farm specific control programs.
The program for the virtual sessions is below:
Session 1: April 14. Parasites of impact in sheep and goats, and basics of their lifecycles.
Session 2: April 21. Factors that determine risk of parasite infection and grazing management strategies to reduce exposure.
Session 3: April 28. Infection control and monitoring approaches and methods to maintain refugia.
Session 4: May 5. Putting it all together: developing a successful sustainable integrated parasite control program for your farm.
There is an additional in-person workshop on Saturday, May 9 from noon to 4pm at the MSU Sheep Teaching and Research Center and MSU campus. During this workshop, you will learn how to monitor infection using the FAMACHA system on sheep at the MSU STRC and then travel to the nearby MSU campus labs to learn how to perform quantitative fecal egg counting. Participants will receive a FAMACHA anemia scoring card and training certificate. Workshop participants must attend or listen to the recordings of the 4-part webinar series to attend the workshop.
The cost for the online sessions is $25 per household series only, and an additional $30 per person for the workshop (there is a 50 participant limit to the workshop, so please register early to ensure your spot).
Register at: https://events.anr.msu.edu/
(If the link doesn’t work, try deleting the “s” in “https”)
Contact Mike Metzger at metzgerm@msu.edu with any questions regarding content or registration.