The impact of traditional management on seasonal internal parasite burdens and productivity of indigenous Tswana goats in southern Botswana.

Data collected monthly over a period of two years were live weight, packed cell volume (PCV), nematode faecal egg counts (FECs) and coccidial oocyst counts from faecal analyses for 100 mixed age (3-7 years) indigenous Tswana does. The aims of this experiment were to determine seasonal FECs and coccidial oocysts in these goats and quantify the relationships of these burdens to liveweight and PCV. FECs significantly (P < 0.

The establishment, composition and severity of infection of gastro-intestinal parasites and their impact on productivity of Tswana kids in southern Botswana.

The presence of gastro-intestinal parasites in Tswana kids (n = 7) aged 1-3 weeks was studied for a period of 6 months at the Botswana College of Agriculture. The aims of this study were to find the time when they first contracted internal parasite infections, as well as to determine the severity of the infections and also its relation to production indicators (body mass and packed cell volume) of the kids as they grew older. The results indicate that they contracted coccidial and roundworm infections at approximately one month of age or immediately thereafter.

Sheep-goat hybrid born under natural conditions.

The paper reports a 5 year old male sheep-goat interspecific hybrid born under natural conditions. The hybrid was castrated at 10 months of age. Karyotype analysis confirmed that the animal was a male and a hybrid with 57 chromosomes, an intermediate number between sheep (2n=54) and goat (2n=60).

Use of degenerate primers and heat-soaked polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to clone a serine protease antigen from Dermatophilus congolensis.

Serine proteases are thought to be involved in the initial attack on sheep skin by Dermatophilus congolensis and are obvious antigens for inclusion in a vaccine to prevent lumpy wool disease (dermatophilosis). Degenerate primers were designed after alignment of seven bacterial serine proteases. Inosine was incorporated into the primers at positions of three- and four-base redundancy, and this reduced the complexity of the primer mixtures from several thousand to sixteen different sequences for each primer.