Deworming Goats and Sheep on a Schedule

Why a worm calendar alone is not enough

Most goat and sheep keepers in Ghana learn about worms the hard way. A kid that was lively on Monday is dull by Friday, its eyelids look pale, and the owner reaches for whatever dewormer the agro-input shop has on the shelf. That reaction is understandable, but it is also where many flocks go wrong. Deworming on a fixed calendar, every month or every season regardless of what the animals show, treats some animals that did not need it and misses the ones that did.

A schedule still has its place, as a reminder to check the animals. What it should not do is decide the treatment. Let what you see and what a simple test shows set that, and let your vet or the district animal health officer help you build the plan, because worms, pasture and climate differ from one district to the next.

The reason this matters is resistance. Every time a dewormer is given to animals that did not need it, the worms that survive are the ones least affected by the drug. Over several years those survivors become the majority on your ground. A farm that treats by habit can end up with a dewormer that no longer works, and the only options left are a different chemical family, which may cost more, or a loss of animals that could have been saved.

The worms that do the most damage

Goats and sheep in Ghana carry several kinds of worm, but a handful of them cause most of the trouble. The table below lists the ones most likely to turn up on a small holding, with the signs they tend to show. Signs overlap, so read the table as a list of things to look for rather than a diagnosis.

Of these, the barber pole worm is the one that most often kills animals quickly during warm, wet weather. It feeds on blood from the stomach lining, so an animal can lose a large amount before it looks obviously sick. Liver fluke is the one to watch on low, wet ground and near slow-moving water, because it needs a freshwater snail to complete its life cycle.

Judging the animal first, then the calendar

Start every check by looking at the animal. The eyelid is the most useful place to look. Pull the lower lid down gently and match the inner lining against a colour card. Pale pink or white points towards anaemia, and anaemia in goats and sheep is most often caused by barber pole worm. The FAMACHA system uses a five-point colour chart for this purpose, and many vets can teach you to use it in an afternoon.

Next, check body condition. Feel along the backbone and across the ribs with your palm. A healthy animal has some cover over the ribs and a firm back. A worm-hit animal feels bony, with the spine and hip bones standing out. Then look under the jaw for bottle jaw, a soft swelling that appears when the blood protein falls. Finally, look at the droppings. Watery or soft dung, or dung stuck to the hind legs and tail, is a sign to act.

What is not a worm sign

Many other problems look like worms. A goat with a cough may have pneumonia. A thin lamb may be underfed or carrying a bad tooth. Diarrhoea can come from coccidia, a bacterial infection or poor feed. This is why the eye check and the droppings check are a starting point, not a verdict. If an animal is down, bloated or losing weight fast, get your vet out the same day instead of treating it yourself.

Faecal egg counts tell you who needs treatment

A faecal egg count (FEC) measures the worm eggs passing out in a sample of dung. Your vet or a nearby laboratory can run one. A small amount of dung from several animals is mixed, weighed and examined under a microscope, and the result is given as eggs per gram. It shows which animals are shedding a lot and which are shedding very little. On many farms a small share of animals carries most of the worm load, so treating those animals is more useful than dosing the whole group.

Counts only work well with a fresh sample. Label each sample with the animal's number and get it to the lab the same day if you can. A sample left warm on the bench lets eggs hatch and skews the count. Keep samples cool, not frozen. A count taken straight after treatment does not show how well the dewormer worked. Your vet can advise on a follow-up count, usually about two weeks after treatment, to check that the drug is still effective on your farm.

Rotating dewormer families so they keep working

Dewormers fall into chemical families, and each family kills worms in a slightly different way. The main families used in small ruminants are the benzimidazoles, the imidazothiazoles, which include levamisole, and the macrocyclic lactones. A newer family is in use in some countries. Your vet will tell you which families still work on your farm, because this varies by region and by how the drugs have been used locally.

Rotation means using a different family at each treatment round, so that worms surviving one family are hit by the next. It only helps when the change is made deliberately and the dose is right. Repeating the same product every month, or using a product too weak for the animal's weight, is the fastest way to select resistant worms. A combination product can help in some cases, but only on your vet's advice.

Keep a note of which family you used and when, so no one repeats the same product by accident. Never use a product that is not labelled for goats or sheep without your vet's advice, and never assume a cattle or poultry product is safe for small ruminants at the same dose.

Grazing habits that cut the worm load

Worm eggs passed in droppings hatch on the ground, and the larvae climb onto the grass to wait for an animal to eat them. Most of the larvae stay in the bottom few centimetres of the grass, so how you graze makes a real difference. Animals that crop grass very close pick up far more larvae than those that eat the upper part of the plant. Leaving grass a little taller, moving animals before they strip a paddock, and keeping them off wet low ground in the rains all reduce what they take in.

Rotating paddocks helps too. Split the grazing area into two or three blocks and shift the flock every two to three weeks, larvae on the first paddock have time to die off before the animals return. This is not perfect, because larvae can survive for weeks in warm, damp weather, but it gives a real reduction. A keeper with a small compound can use cut-and-carry instead, bringing in fresh browse and grass from clean ground and feeding it in a raised rack.

Goats that browse on shrubs and leaves usually take in fewer larvae than those kept on short, grazed-out grass, so mixed browse and grass is often the best option.

A seasonal plan that bends with the rains

Worm risk in Ghana follows the weather more closely than the calendar on the wall. Across most of the south, including the Central Region where Kasoa sits, the main wet season falls roughly between April and July, with a lighter spell from September to November. Larvae do best in warm, damp conditions, so these months carry the highest risk for most worms. The dry months, and especially the harmattan from about December to February, usually bring lower larval numbers on pasture, although grazing the few green patches left can still expose animals.

A workable plan follows the weather. At the start of each rainy season, do eye and body checks on the whole flock and weigh a sample of animals. In the middle of the rains, use faecal counts where you can to decide who needs treatment, and move paddocks on schedule. In the harmattan, review your records and check weights, and treat only animals that show signs. Before the next rains, check the flock again and confirm that your dewormers are within their expiry dates.

Kids, lambs, does and ewes need different handling

Young animals are the most vulnerable group. They have not built up resistance to worms, and they often share ground with older animals that shed large numbers of eggs. Kids and lambs should be checked every two to three weeks during the wet months, and early weaning onto clean ground helps. Strongyloides and tapeworm are common in young animals. Watery scouring in a kid only a few weeks old needs a vet visit, not a guess at the dewormer.

Pregnant and lactating animals need extra attention. Around kidding and lambing, the animals' resistance to worms dips and their egg output rises, so this is the time many keepers see their worst outbreaks. Check the does and ewes before they give birth, and again once the young are on the ground. Your vet can tell you whether a treatment is suitable for an animal in late pregnancy, because some products are not recommended at that stage.

Weigh first, dose correctly, respect withdrawal

Dosing by eye is one of the most common mistakes in small flocks. A goat of 15 kilograms and one of 30 kilograms need very different amounts of the same drug. Weigh animals on a proper scale, or on a weigh tape that your vet has checked against a scale. Weigh a sample from each group rather than guessing, and work out the dose from the product label and your vet's advice. Keep the dosing gun or syringe clean and check that it delivers the volume you think it does.

Withdrawal periods matter for anything you eat, drink or sell. The label or your vet will give a number of days after treatment before milk can be used or meat sold. Keep a written record of the date, the animal, the product and the date the withdrawal ends, and mark the animal or the pen so that no one sends it to slaughter early. This matters most for milking does and for animals sold through local markets, where the buyer will not ask what treatment an animal received.

Flukes on wet ground: a separate problem

Liver fluke does not respond to the same programme as the roundworms. It needs a freshwater snail to complete its life cycle, so the risk comes from low, wet ground, slow-moving water and irrigated plots where snails live. If your animals graze near a stream, a swamp or the edge of a dam during the rains, ask your vet whether a fluke treatment should be added to the schedule and whether the ground should be avoided at certain times of year.

Signs of fluke include weight loss despite good feed, anaemia, bottle jaw and a dull, unthrifty animal. Because these overlap with barber pole worm, the eye check alone is not enough. Your vet can confirm fluke from dung samples and the history of where the animals have been grazing. Do not treat for fluke on guesswork, since the products used against it differ from those used for roundworms, and some carry long withdrawal periods.

The simplest control is to keep animals off the wettest ground in the rains and to fence off snail habitats where you can. Place water points away from standing puddles, and do not let animals drink from the same stagnant pool that they graze beside.

A simple record that shows what worked

A worm record does not need software. A notebook kept in the house is enough. For each animal, write down the date, the eye score, the weight, the product used and the dose, the withdrawal end date, and any faecal count result. Once a year, read the book through. You will see which animals keep needing treatment, which pens keep getting dirty, and whether the dewormer you have been using still works.

Records also help your vet. A vet who sees a clear history can often suggest a better plan in one visit, where one who starts from nothing may need several. If several people look after the flock, keep the record in one place and make sure everyone writes in it. A missing entry can mean a repeated dose or an animal sold inside its withdrawal period.

Where a poultry hatchery fits on a mixed farm

Halaal Farms is a poultry hatchery in Opeikuma, Kasoa, and our daily work is with day-old chicks, not goats or sheep. We mention the small ruminant side here because many family farms keep poultry alongside a few goats or sheep, and the same land, feed store and labour often serve both. If you are building a mixed holding, the poultry side can start with a small batch of day-old chicks while you plan the goat or sheep side with your vet. For the early steps, the how-to page for poultry in Ghana is the place to start.

Chicks from our hatchery arrive already covered for Marek's disease, Newcastle, Gumboro, infectious bronchitis and coccidiosis. That is a poultry programme, and it does not cover worms in goats or sheep. For planning the poultry side, our vaccination schedule calculator gives you a working outline, and the wider picture of poultry farming in Ghana is on our site. Starting prices for chicks are on our prices page, and each price is confirmed when you place an order. We take orders on WhatsApp or by phone and accept mobile money, bank transfer or cash. Chicks leave on the day they hatch, with delivery to all 16 regions and the cost quoted before you pay.

For questions about goat or sheep treatment, the right person is your vet or district animal health officer. For questions about our chicks, the FAQ page and our blog answer the common ones.

Questions farmers ask