Prevalence of Caprine Strongyle Infection and The Diagnostic Efficacy of Some Media for Faecal Culture and Nematode larval Recovery from Goat Faeces

Abstract

The prevalen ce of capri n e strongyle in fections and the diagnostic efficacy of s o me culture media in sup p o rt i n g the recovery of st rong y l e l a rvae w e re eval uat e d usi n g 840 f a ecal samp e s col l e ct ed from goats during slaughter at Ma iduguri Metropolitan abattoir. Faecal exam ination conducted by t h e mod fi ed McMast er t e chni q u e reveal ed that out of 840 g o at s exami n ed , 708 (83 . 8 %) shed d e d strongyle e g gs in their faeces. The prevalence of infect ion was signif ican tly (P < 0 05 ) higher among female, young and diarrhoeic goats than th e i r corresponding male, adult and non-diarrheic counterparts. Faecal cultu r e and larval recovery us ing the tes t tu be filter pape r technique r e vealed that the dire ct culture o faecal samples witho u t any additio n al culture medium sup p o r ted the recovery of the largest nu mber of nem a tode infec v e larvae from the faece s . When th is was used as a st and a rd (100% eg g hat c h or 0% red u ct i o n i n eg g hat c h), l a rval recovery w a s hi g h est (P<0. 05) f r o m g o at f a eces (98.4 %) f o l o w e d resp ectively by s h eep faeces (57. 7 %), cow faeces (52. 4 %), ho rse f a eces (4 2.3 %) and s o (18.6 %) as culture m e dia. The res u lts there f ore indicate the super o r diagno stic q u ality o go at faeces as a culture m e dium for the recovery of i n fective nematode stages in goat faeces.