Vol. 11, Special Issue 8 (2022)

Author(s):
T Sujatha, B Rajeev Kumar and M Murali Krishna

Abstract:
The effects of feeding neem leaves against natural gastrointestinal nematodes in neonatal lambs was studied. 200 lambs which were born during lambing season (November to January) were randomly selected and divided into 4 different groups each consisting of 50 neonatal lambs. The status of worm burden was studied from 11^th day to 3 months. In group – I, lambs were neither dewormed during course of study nor fed with neem leaves, in group – II they were fed with replaced diet containing only neem leaves and lambs were not dewormed, In the group – III they were Dewormed early and the lambs were not fed with neem leaves and in group –IV they were dewormed early and also fed with neem leaves as replaced diet. The overall positive rate in the group – I was notably at higher rate (88%) followed by group – II(44%). However, in group - III and IV the positive percentage is significantly low. In group –I, the lambs were very susceptible to gastro intestinal parasites like Amphistomes, Strongyles and coccidia. Even in this group mixed infections like Strongyles & coccidia were found to be at higher rate. The synergistic action of early deworming and Feeding with neem leaves aided in the achievement of less positive percentage in group - IV.