I have a friend and an acquiaintance both who have their goat herds under the supervision of the university of Tennessee in Knoxville ( home of Dolly the cloned sheep who has died ).

Both their herds are wormed and monitored by UT so they get free fecal exams and free worming. Plus a whole lot of information on goats and their health. Although I enjoy this forum and come here for advice first , if I can't get an answer to a health problem here , I know I can get one from my friend or my acquaintance.

One of these herds has a doe that hasn't needed to be wormed in the last 2 years. No one knows why YET , but this goat has a natural immunity to worms , at least that's what researchers believe at UT .

Being that UT has some knowlege of DNA ( they cloned sheep before ) thet are trying to isolate the factor for this worm resistance.They aren't looking to clone this goat , but are trying to see if they can breed her so her offspring will also carry these resistant traits.

Anyone who lives in a warm wet area of the U.S knows the hassle of goats getting re-infested with worms and can surely see the benefits this could have . Especialy with the high cost of wormers and the tendency of parasites becoming immune to a particular womer.

There could be other goats who are carrying worm resistant genes , but possibly because most don't do fecal exams on every goat before they worm them and just use a maintenance program every 3 months without fecal exams these other resistant goats may be going un-noticed.

Perhaps someone has a doe or buck in there herd who has this resistance also but because of not doing fecal exams , they'll never even know.

-- Steve (unreal@home.com), January 21, 2003

Answers

I couldn't get this to submit under one long writing so I had to do some first and add the rest as an answer.

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I had thought if someone had a buck with this resistance and it was breed to this mans doe , a whole new line of worm resistant goats can be breed and years down the line we could all have access to worm resistant goats.

So fecal exams can indeed prove to have a value non have realized before.

The doe I'm writing of is a purebred Nubian with a very large body and a high volume milker.

I believe the man who owns her has health problems ,I think cancer. Hopfully he will get to see his work pan out to something before he goes.

He is into the goat breeding more for the love of it than of the profit to be gotten. I think most of us are ?

So fecal exams can give to goat breeding more than just knowing if your goats have worms of not.

-- Steve (unreal@home.com), January 21, 2003.