Faecal Egg Counts-Rural Vet Services

Faecal Egg Counts

At Rural Veterinary Services we offer faecal eggs counts (FECs)—a great way of monitoring worm burdens and drench resistance problems in your flock.

Worm control and drench resistance management in livestock is most efficient and sustainable when there is an indication of the size of worm burdens and the effectiveness of drenches. Faecal worm egg counts give an estimate of the worm burden in the gastrointestinal tract of an animal based on the number of worm eggs present in a sample of faeces.

We have nurses who are skilled in identifying and counting faecal eggs and who can offer free advice on decision-making in relation to drenching protocols.

Worm egg counts have several purposes including:

determining whether drenching is needed to treat or prevent disease or production loss caused by worms
monitoring the effectiveness of planned control programs
testing for drench effectiveness
testing individual sheep for selection for worm resistance.

To perform faecal egg counts we require a fresh sample of faeces—preferably from several different animals. These can be obtained by holding a mob in the corner of the paddock and then collecting 10 faeces left behind.