[Womble]

OK, so I bought an old 1960s microscope (£60 from ebay), a McMaster slide (£12.50), and cobbled the other bits I needed from stuff I had lying about. I also have a squitty tup lamb.  Let's FEC!! 

I won't go through the method I used, since it is described in detail here, but here are the results:

The first thing to note is that the salt solution is designed to make the worm eggs float, and everything else sink. So, if I focussed on the bottom of the slide chamber (not that easy because stuff gets in the way), it looks like this (because most of the debris has sunk):



However,  once I re-focussed to bring the slide grid-lines into view, I started to see this sort of thing!:













I repeated the test twice and found four eggs each time, so that's roughly 200 eggs per gram, i.e. low enough not to worry yet? (which of course raises the question why else is he scouring?  )

Of course, I haven't suddenly become a parasitologist overnight  . However, from comparing with the chart at this link, I'm going to guess that 1, 2 and 5b and maybe 3 are strongylid eggs, and 4 (much smaller) is a coddidia oocyst. Does anybody who's done this before ([member=35918]Me[/member]  ?) have any better ideas?

I haven't a clue what 5a and 6 are, but there were quite a lot of those and I'm not sure if they're bits of grass or something more sinister. Again, what do you think folks?

In conclusion, it's clear I'm going to need some more practice with this, but I reckon I'll be able to get it down to ten minutes per test before long, which is quick and easy enough to do regularly. Definitely a worthwhile investment IMHO! 

[harmony]

  You could provide a service to the rest of us! We get loads of crap with our post! 

[Rosemary]

Nah, I'll just leave it to the experts. I'd hate to compromise my stocks welfare by getting it wrong.

[Womble]

No danger, Harmony!  As you can see, I've a way to go before I know enough to do my own, let alone anybody else's. Besides, these guys are cheaper than me  .

Rosemary - I remember you said something similar the last time we discussed this, but I don't understand why you say that. Do you get an expert to check teeth and hooves? What about to do injections? Everything is difficult until it isn't, and surely the more we can learn about our livestock, the better that is for their welfare?

I'll still take the same number of samples to the vet each year (at least until I'm 100% sure I know what I'm doing, and their results consistently agree with mine). The difference is that now I can easily check an individual animal if I'm in doubt. Likewise, I can take regular group samples and look for trends throughout the year, or do an egg reduction count post worming, to check for drug resistance. Personally I reckon that has to be worth a one-off cost of £75, over the lifetime of our smallholding  .

[cloddopper]

When you have a volume of such regular out goings that you are able to reduce the scope is certainly the way to go . 
I saved a small fortune by importing my own vaccines off a prescription and treating my stock under the over view of our resident veterinary inspector .


 What sort of magnifications were you using to get those pictures  ? I ask because we might be looking for a similar magnification ?

 Due to HollyRobyn wanting & working to become a veterinary surgeon we as a family have been looking at buying one of the mid price range digital camera microscopes that can hit 600 magnification & more that can hook up to Munchkins computer  or my bigger 500 x 800 mm  digital flat screen monitor .

 

[Womble]

I think it partly depends on how much your vet charges. Our previous vet charged £12 per sample, so DIY is definitely a saving. However our new vet charges £5, which is pretty good IMHO. That said, saving cash was not my primary motivation.

My microscope was a Fleabay special. It came with x10, x40 and x100 objective lenses, which gives overall magnification of x100, x400 and x1000. In reality I can only use the x100 setting with the Mcmaster slide (I think because the slide is too thick for the other lenses?). The guides all say you need a x40 overall magnification setting as well, but actually I think I'm going to get by just fine with x100 as the minimum setting {Edit: I have since bought a lens to give a X40 overall magnification. It was only £15, and does make life easier because you can see the whole width of one 'box' of the mcmaster slide in the same view}. BTW, one absolute must have is a mechanical 'stage', so you can move the slide around precisely.





It doesn't have a USB camera (they weren't invented for about another 40 years  ), so I took the photos by putting a standard digital camera up to the eyepiece. That's why some of the pics are slightly blurred - they look better through the eyepiece, but I couldn't get the camera to focus exactly. Here's what one of the pics looks like before zooming and cropping, taken at x100 magnification. BTW, the vertical line is one of the grid lines on the McMaster slide:





HTH! 

[Foobar]

Well done you!

I think 1, 2 & 5 are Nematodirus eggs?

5a & 6 are grass or hairs, nothing to worry about.

Your egg counts need to be per-egg-type, as the different worms have different thresholds before you need to worry about them.

[Womble]

Cool, thanks Foobar!  Yes, looking at them again now, 1,2 and 5b are the same thing, and do look like nematodirus eggs. The guide picture I was looking at had them labelled strangely, which misled me into thinking the ones with distinct circles were a different stage of development to the ones in 3. Our vet had advised worming the lambs in June & July due to a high nematodirus count, but I naively thought October would be too late for them. The picture at this link is a bit better though:



What's number 3 then?  Is that a strongyle?


Oh, and does anybody know where I can buy a copy of the I-spy book of nematodes? 

[fsmnutter]

Nematodirus is a particular species of strongyle. In practice it does not really matter whether you can tell the difference between nematodirus and other strongyles because Nematodirosis the disease is a problem before eggs show as the larval stages in large numbers kill lambs. Consult your vet, Scops and Nadis to know when/if you are at risk that year and when/if to treat. Further on in the year, a large count of any strongyle eggs warrants treatment, but I would agree a count of 200 warrants wait, watch and check again if mucky bums or in a few weeks time.

You certainly seem to have egg identification spot on. I'm not sure about the small one you think may be a coccidia oocyst as the picture isn't quite clear enough. Polled and air bubbles can look similar, but coccidia usually have distinct circles within the main circle if that makes sense! Also 9/10 species of coccidia are not pathogenic in sheep, so even 1000+epg may not be significant so again consult your vet and parasite websites to decide if treatment required (also helpful for the pocket to be sure as most coccidiocides are expensive!)

[DartmoorLiz]

What amazing photos Womble!  I had a go with the slide you sent me and, while I could see many round blobs I could not tell if they were eggs or just stuff.  so the egg count was either over 1000 or nil.  It never occurred to me I could just use my normal camera to take photos.  I'll give it a go so everyone can have a laugh at my ineptness.    .  Ewes and lambs all looking well and growing away so no feelings of urgency though.

[Womble]

How round, [member=24274]DartmoorLiz[/member] ?   I believe that perfectly round and dark coloured blobs are usually air bubbles under the slide?

Cheers!