Factors affecting gastrointestinal parasite infections in goats in semi-arid rural ecosystems in India

This study was undertaken in two adopted villages of a semi-arid zone of India (namely Mahuan and Bhahai) to assess the prevalence rates of different parasitic infections in goats and the various factors affecting them. In a 4-years study, the effect of various factors like year and season of sampling, farmer’s land holding, flock size, sex and age of the animals along with interactions, were observed and analyzed. The common parasites profile of both villages was equal. Coccidian infection in both villages (36.96 and 41.81 percent, respectively) was marked by the presence of Eimeria arliongi, E. ninakohlyakimovae, E. parva, E. caprina, E. alijevi species, while gastro-intestinal nematode infections (23.17 and 27.23 percent respectively) were dominated by the presence of Haemonchus contortus. The study revealed that different environmental factors, like farmer’s land holding, herd size and age of the animal, significantly influenced the load of coccidian infection. Among nematode ones, the effects of factors like herd size and age of the animals were significant on fecal egg count, whereas for Moniezial infection sampling year, land holding capacity of farmers and flock size had significant effect on fecal egg count of animals. We can conclude that the interaction effect between sampling village per sampling year had only a significant effect on coccidian infection of goats (P<0.05).