Strategies for sustainable control of gastrointestinal parasites of ruminants using urea-molasses blocks

• Veterinary Research Institute, Malaysia
• Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forests, Fiji
• National Dairy Development Board, India

The Pacific Islands and the Indian sub-continent place an ever-increasing demand on ruminant livestock production. Nutrition and health are principal constraints.

Utilisation of poor quality agricultural residues used for feed can be improved by supplementing the animals with urea-molasses blocks containing minerals and small amounts of protein. ACIAR project 8523 has also shown that urea-molasses blocks can deliver effective anthelmintic medication, reducing deaths and production losses due to internal parasites.

Scientists have developed a fenbendazole formulation that was effective in controlling parasites in sheep and goats in Fiji. This technology will be useful to Malaysia, where sheep farmers are trying to reduce reliance on herbicides to control undergrowth, and increase meat production by grazing sheep on forages under tree crops.

In addition, research on dairy cattle and buffalo in India will continue in order to develop the medicated block concept to the point of large scale manufacture and distribution.

This project follows a review of PN 8523, which recommended further research to integrate nutritional and chemotherapeutic uses of urea-molasses blocks to produce optimal strategies for parasite control.

Collaborating scientists, will target ruminant production systems where urea-molasses block supplements have already provided a nutritional benefit, but where the effect of anthelmintic supplements on the animals' ability to resist parasitic infection has yet to be assessed.

The latter information will be correlated with field evaluations on the parasitological efficacy of medicated blocks, in order to develop sound strategies for their prophylactic use.

Research methodology will include:

Epidemiology studies - largely completed in India, and Fiji, but still required for Malaysia;

Strategic control programs - to determine the best combinations of grazing management, nutritional supplement use and prophylactic anthelmintic for maximum production in all partner countries;

Medicated block formulation - to ensure correct dose rates and adequate quality of blocks produced in each country; and

Parasite-nutrition interactions - to be studied under controlled conditions in Australia to determine the impact of nitrogen supply on the development of immunocompetence in the host.