A Swiss research and development veterinary project in The Gambia: The livestock owners' point of view on prophylactic anthelmintic treatment in livestock | Projet suisse de recherche-developpement veterinarie en Gambie: Le point de vue de l'eleveur sur la lutte contre les helminthoses chez le betail
1998
Ankers, P. (Centre international sur la Trypanotolerance, Banjul (Gambie)) | Zinsstag, J. | Itty, P. | Kaufmann, J. | Pfister, K.
The epidemiology of nematodes in livestock in The Gambia was assessed. A prophylactic biannual treatment was then tested on cattle and sheep. This treatment resulted in a significant improvement in the reproductive performances (sheep: lambings/year increasing from 1.04 to 1.22 and lambs/lambing increasing from 1.11 to 1.19; cattle: age at first calving decreasing from 58 to 50 months) and, in cattle, a significant improvement of the weight (varying between 8 % and 17 % in 1 to 4 year old animals). A socioeconomic study conducted in parallel showed that the treatment in cattle is on average profitable (benefit/cost ratio of 1.14) but remains a risky investment which should not be generalised (benefit/cost ratio rould have been below 1 in more than half of the pariticipating herds). In sheep, the benefit/cost ratio is high /2.47 with a low risk of losses (10%). The obstacles to the adoption by farmers of such a treatment and the usefulness of a pluridisciplinary approach in similar studies are then discussed.
Show more [+] Less [-]AGROVOC Keywords
Bibliographic information
This bibliographic record has been provided by Agroscope Reckenholz-Tänikon Research Station