by 
Hi friends,
Worms are one of the biggest threats to a sheep operation, and if you don’t have a plan to manage them, they can take your flock down. After losing half of my flock early on, I had to figure out what actually works on my farm when it comes to parasite control.
In this episode, I start with the basics of internal parasites, how to recognize early signs of infection, and the management practices that have made the biggest difference on my farm. I cover rotational grazing, parasite resistance vs. tolerance, when to use chemical dewormers, and natural strategies I’ve tested myself.
If you’re raising sheep or hoping to, this episode will help you create a simple, effective system to stay ahead of worms and protect the long-term health of your flock.
-the Shepherdess
TRANSCRIPT
the Shepherdess All right, guys, tonight has a specific theme: Worms 101. We’re going to be talking about internal parasites, and really how to mitigate them on your farm. If you are a small farmer, shepherd specifically, you are going to know that worms will be one of your biggest challenges on pasture. I was telling my sister, Chicken Lady, this morning, “I’m cramming on these slides.” Really, I could probably talk for seven hours straight about worms. Limiting it to just one hour is going to be a little challenging, but I think I’ve got some of the biggest and best information for you. So buckle up, grab a notebook, grab a pen, get ready to take some notes for Worms 101.
But first up, I’m going to give you guys a little introduction on my farm. A lot of you guys are familiar with me. Some of you guys aren’t. But I am operating in Northeast Texas on about 30 acres. I do not own the land. I’m renting it from my family. It would be a dream to be a landowner one day, but for now, I’m just trying to steward what I do have in front of me. And I’m very grateful for my parents being willing to lease the land to me. Now, I focus primarily on purebred Dorper sheep. And these are a meat sheep. Little heads up: the information tonight is going to apply no matter what kind of sheep you’re raising. And it’s also going to apply no matter whether you’re raising sheep or goats, because a lot of the worms that infect sheep also infect goats, and vice versa. They’re pretty much the same. So you’re going to be getting a lot of information if you’re a goat raiser out there. Now, like I said, I raise Dorper sheep, and rainfall at my place is about 45 inches annually. And this is a perfect environment in which to practice regenerative pasture-based farming. But it’s the perfect environment for parasites to thrive and eat sheep alive if you do not take care with your management.
But I personally practice regenerative pasture-based farming. My system has minimal—meaning little or no—grain or feed input, and little or no fancy seeds or fancy pasture plantings. Basically my sheep go out there and I manage them on what is growing naturally. Occasionally I will sprinkle maybe some ryegrass, maybe some crimson clover, but I don’t plant with a tractor. I don’t do anything complicated like that. What you see is what you get on what grows naturally. And I use rotational grazing to rotate my sheep across my pasture. I’m going to be talking a lot about rotational grazing in the upcoming slides. And I really do consider this regenerative rotational grazing system to be the crown jewel of my overall operation and work because it was really this system, these practices, that turned everything around for the health and productivity of my flock and of my land. And as we kind of get into some of the worm stuff, you’re going to find out exactly why rotational grazing is so important.
If you’re a beginner shepherd on 30 acres or less, then I wrote a book for you: The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture. Available at Shepherdess.com with free shipping. Raising sheep on pasture requires a basic understanding of pasture management, breeding and lambing, and mitigation methods for common disease. I walk the beginner shepherd through each aspect, sharing through this book vivid pictures, easy-to-follow instructions, and personalized stories from my own journey with sheep. Available with free shipping at Shepherdess.com; you’ll find a direct link in the description.
Guys, health was a struggle before I started rotational grazing. In fact, we lost half of our flock in the first two years of sheep farming. We lost sheep to parasites, primarily to worms. And in addition to this, our pasture just really wasn’t very healthy overall. There would be spots overgrazed, and then there would be spots that the sheep didn’t even go to—they were under grazed. And what happened was, once I started rotational grazing, number one, the health of our flock turned a complete 180. Number two, the help of our pasture really improved. Overgrazed spots, guys, they disappeared. Undergrazed spots—we were able to eat them up and utilize them, minimizing further our feed inputs and our costs overall. And by working and moving the flock regularly, I became really aware, at a really close level, of which of my sheep were the strongest and which of my sheep were more prone to becoming sick or diseased, or suffering more than the others with these parasites. It’s going to be another key point to key in on as we go forward. But basically, this system—allowing me to get closer to my animals, allowing me to get closer to my land—was an absolute game changer.
Now for some background on me personally. Maybe there are some people out there in the audience—raise your hand if you are a complete beginner and you have no farming background and you’re maybe even feeling a little bit like you’re in over your head and you think you’re not going to be able to do this because you have no background to do this. Okay, good. Because that’s where I was at. Just some background on me personally: I started farming in 2020 with no background in agriculture whatsoever, no industry connections whatsoever. I had a neighbor who was an absolute lifeline, but that was about the beginning and the end of my connection to agriculture. At that point in time, just as a matter of testimony, I really just felt led by the Lord to invest in some form of low-input food security for my family. And what that meant, in the moment, was just taking 30 acres of grass that was being mostly unused and turning it into meat. And before diving into farming, I was actually in digital marketing and product development in the retail apparel industry. So to say that going from, I guess, fashion to farming was a learning curve would have been an absolute understatement.
But what I think it does, if I’m honest, is it helps me to encourage other people into the industry from absolute zero background, because they can see somebody who was an unlikely farmer and having some success, and they get a little bit emboldened themselves. And that’s exactly what I want to do. That’s exactly why I share my story in depth is to encourage you guys. You don’t have to have a background in agriculture. You just have to be a good learner and you have to be persistent and willing to fail sometimes. But just get back up and keep going because failures are not the end unless you let them be the end for you. So keep going. So for me personally, when it came to farming, I kind of felt like I was jumping in, kind of being that beginner, and it felt like climbing a ladder that was missing the first five rungs. Really every resource that I found assumed that I knew a little bit of something about farming, which when I started, I really did not. And oftentimes I really just couldn’t find anything very sheep specific. I had to amend a lot of the information I found for cows to see if it would work for sheep and keep what did, get rid of what didn’t. So that being my experience, I build out resources for those coming in behind me like I talk about. And it’s my goal just to simply be the first five rungs of that ladder for you by relaying simple firsthand information to beginners in pasture-based sheep farming.
Understanding the life cycle of worms
All right, let’s run right into it. Number one, section number one, is life cycle and symptoms. And to give you a 1,000 foot view tonight, we’re going to be breaking things up into four different sections. Number one, I’m going to cover the life cycle and symptoms of these various worms that can infect your sheep. Number two, we’re going to be talking about conventional treatments—the stuff you go to the tractor supply, probably chemicals, and then buy and treat your sheep with. Number three, I am going to be talking about natural solutions—things that I have implemented through management and otherwise to mitigate the worm loads in my flock. And then number four, guys, I am going to be giving you the results from the viral using lye as a dewormer for livestock. I got so many emails from people saying, “Have you tried this new lye as a de-wormer for livestock thing yet?” I went to the video, it has about 210,000 views so far, and I said, “Okay, I’ve got to take this to the vet.” So that’s exactly what I did, and I was a little bit surprised by the results. So stick around to the end because I’m going to be sharing that with you.
There’s a saying: “If you know your enemy and yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” And I did update it to reflect a little bit more of a Christian worldview, but the principle applies the same. You really need to get an understanding of these parasites, how they work, their life cycle, and how to catch them early in order to win your battles. So the most common parasites you’re going to find in sheep are the barber’s pole worm, tapeworms, and roundworms. You’re probably going to find a couple of other worms like lungworms, etc., but these are the big three. And then the fourth is actually not a worm, but it kind of affects sheep in the same way as a worm, so I’m going to be including it tonight—and it is cocci. It’s actually a protozoan, but for all intents and purposes, we’re going to call it a worm and we’re going to address it as such, because its mitigation and management essentially fall in line with the worm side of things.
So I’m going to really, really narrow in hard on the barber’s pole worm tonight for one reason, and that is that if you are managing for the barber’s pole worm, a lot of those other worms—like the tapeworms, the roundworms, etc.—they’re going to fall in line behind the barber’s pole worm. Meaning, if you’re successfully managing and mitigating the barber’s pole worm, you’re probably successfully managing and mitigating the other worms as well. So I’m going to go ahead and give you a look at the five part life cycle of the barber’s pole worm. Number one, the eggs of the barber’s pole worm exit the sheep’s body through its manure. Those lovely little pebbles that they put out in mass every single day contain hundreds, if not thousands of eggs. And within three to 14 days, those eggs hatch on pasture and the larvae crawl up the grass blades where they can be eaten by the sheep. Once inside of the sheep, the larvae attach to the lining of the stomach, feed on the blood of the host, and begin laying eggs.
I should have put a disclaimer up here, guys, but I’m just going to say it like it is: you might get some blood and guts tonight, but I’ll try to be discreet. But that’s essentially what the barber’s pole worm does, and that’s essentially why it becomes such a big threat to your sheep—because it sucks all of its blood out. It’s like a vampire. It’s thousands of tiny vampires on the inside of your sheep if you don’t manage it right. And then what happens is those matured larvae begin laying eggs, these eggs exit the body of the sheep through its manure, and the process starts all over again. So that is the life cycle of the barber’s pole worm. Now something to understand is that there are going to be high-risk periods of the time of year, and high-risk points in the sheep’s life cycle that you want to watch for. Understand that those are the times in the sheep’s life when you need to be really watching for parasites, because they’re going to be more vulnerable to them.
So high-risk times of year are spring and summer. The reason is that spring is cool, balmy, and wet, and those are perfect conditions for these worms to hatch and crawl up the grass blades and infect your sheep. And summer also falls in line there. Now the beautiful thing about summer and what I love about summer is that once it hits about 90 to 95 degrees and it stops raining, your pasture will be sanitized within about two weeks of that kind of weather. So I always have like a celebration when the weather gets so hot here in Texas and it gets so dry because I know that in about 10 to 14 days, my annual—I don’t want to say struggle because thankfully it’s not a struggle against parasites anymore—but my annual watchdog against parasites is mostly over. Once we hit that heat of summer, we can then enjoy fall and winter, where the parasites mostly go dormant and stop causing sleepless nights and potential anxiety. Another thing I want to note here guys is the high-risk time periods in the sheep’s life. If you’re making note, I want you to make note that lambs under 50 pounds are a little bit more vulnerable to parasites than other sheep. And then I want you to make note that lactating ewes are going to be more vulnerable to parasites than most other classes of sheep. So just think: small lambs and moms that are making milk for those lambs—those are going to be the vulnerable categories that you want to watch out for.
Signs of worm infection in sheep
I’m going to segue into symptoms because when it comes to worms, catching the infection early is going to allow you to have a variety of methods. You won’t have to go drench them with the strongest chemical because you waited until the very end to catch the disease. If you catch them early, you can do some of those more natural holistic treatments. And one of the best ways that I personally watch for the barber’s pole worm in my flock is by doing a FAMACHA score on the eyelids. You guys can see here on screen and you’ll notice here that this is basically three shades that I watch for. The top is healthy, beautiful. No need for dewormer here. The middle is something very pale. If she’s nursing especially, she does need some treatment. And then the bottom one is the eyelids on an animal that has just died of barber’s pole worm. So in case you want to know what it looks like to die of barber’s pole worm, that eyelid would be indicative of what it looks like. Other symptoms of the barber’s pole worm include bottle jaw, and this is really where, basically, fluid builds up in the jaw line. It’s very, very sloshy. And this is advanced stages of the barber’s pole worm. You want to really jump in with some treatment, some really aggressive treatment, if I’m honest, if you want to save this sheep, because these are the final stages, and she will probably die if you don’t get her treated. And just as a reminder, guys, I’m going to give both natural and conventional treatments, but in this section, we’re just focusing on getting an idea of the lifecycle and getting an idea of what to look for in terms of symptoms so that you can catch it early.
Other symptoms that you want to watch for in your sheep who may be infected severely with parasites would be sluggish movement. So if you are moving your sheep regularly and you’re moving them to a new paddock and you notice that there’s one sheep that’s always lagging behind, you might want to go in and just check her eyelids. If she’s pale and she’s lagging behind, you know you’ve got an infection going on there. Ears also tell a story. I will often look out over my flock, and if everybody’s grazing and their ears are upright and really looking good, I know that everybody’s healthy, but if I’m scanning the horizon and I’ve got one that’s grazing its ears are like really hanging low, I’m going to go look at that sheep and make sure she’s okay. Another symptom is sitting a lot but not chewing the cud. So if you’ve got a sheep that’s laying around and she looks very droopy in the ears, and she is not chewing her cud while she’s laying there, that’s another one. You want to get in there to check her FAMACHA score, and see if she has got parasite problems. The fourth would be poor body condition despite good feed. So, if she’s chronically skinny despite the fact that you’ve got great pasture or that you’re giving a good feed supplement, again, you might want to check her for worm problems.
Tapeworms and roundworms—these often make themselves very present and very like, “Hi, I’m right here,” because you’re going to be walking on pasture and you’re probably going to see them. I’ve had a couple of emails where people have been like, “Oh my goodness, what do I do? I just found this!” And they’ll send me a picture that looks like this, and I will be like, “It’s okay, just give them X, Y or Z,” which I’m going to cover the options that you have to treat tapeworms and roundworms in the upcoming section. So don’t flip out. It’s going to be okay. We’ll get through this together. Your sheep is not dying and if you get it treated, she’s going to be fine. Alright, so this is the cocci. These are lambs infected with cocci, or coccidiosis is the more formal term. And what you’re going to see in terms of symptoms is just persistent diarrhea that is black. You know, often when you have sheep you want to see those nice healthy pebbles. And if they do have some soft stools, it’ll have a little bit of a greenish tint, but when we’re dealing with a really intense coccidiosis infection, it’s going to be a dark black, and it’s going to be persistent runny stools. That’s going to be a very, very bad sign.
This one here on the left, this is a lamb that was infected with coccidiosis. You can see her neck is balding, she’s got a very pot belly, she has stunted growth, and that is another symptom—her stools were fine, but her growth rate was stunted, and her belly just became exceptionally large, and it was no indication of health. That’s what you also want to watch for. Basically, disproportionate belly to hips and rest of the anatomy would be a good indication of coccidiosis, and you want to take a look at it. Another symptom, and this is just more of a formal way to check for worms in your flock, and that is to do a fecal egg count. Now, I’ve trained myself in how to do these at home. I just bought a simple student microscope and some of the supplies necessary to perform these fecal eggs counts at home, but the vet will also do them for you. And you can do it either way, but just checking the egg count within that manure is a formal way of checking for worm loads. And as a reference point, eggs per gram (EPG) needs to hover around 800 or less. That’s kind of a healthy threshold—800 or less is okay. At 800 or more, you need to consider some form of treatment. Now, eggs per gram: you’re going to see those little pebbles coming out of the back of your sheep in their manure. That’s about one gram. So when we’re talking 800 eggs per gram, that means 800 eggs per pebble, which is very daunting.
And I’m going to show you the lye test I did at the end. I had a goat that was carrying 5,400 eggs per gram. I’ll tell you the full story once we get to the end, but that’s exactly how high it can get—5,400 is not permissible. I’ve had some as high as 8,000—not permissible. Again, we’ll talk about culling the carriers, et cetera, but know that the eggs per gram count is a more formal way than a FAMACHA score to check for worm infections. James says, “It seems like a big number.” If you’re talking about 800, no, 800 is not a big number. My vet said it’s completely acceptable. They were saying up to 1,200 is completely acceptable, as long as the animal’s not showing symptoms, but 800 is fine. 5,400 is absolutely intolerable. The animal that was in question there, she actually had that bottle jaw. She was displaying some pretty significant symptoms of infection. So, yeah, 5,400 is intolerable, but she came back. I’m going to talk to you about what I did to get her back into shape. She was a goat, and we’ll talk about that a little bit down the road.
The important difference between parasite resistance and parasite tolerance
Something I really want to wake you guys up to—because I woke up to it—is the difference between resistance and tolerance. You’re going to see a lot of people talk about parasite-resistant sheep, and that may not be entirely true. You are probably just dealing with a parasite-tolerant sheep. I’m going to tell you a quick little story here: I bought a couple rams that were sired—meaning fathered—by a Greg Judy Ram. They had never been dewormed and they looked great. They looked really good and they were very, very tolerant because I took their fecal samples to the vet, and they were carrying at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 eggs per gram. These guys were loaded with worms, but they were really tolerant. It’s going to really be up to you in terms of what you want on your farm, but I would just suggest if you’re buying something that’s advertised as parasite-resistant, make sure to get a fecal sample up to the vet when you do bring it back to your farm for the first time, and check and see if they’re resistant or just very tolerant.
The problem with something that is so tolerant—to be able to look healthy at 6,000 to 8,000 eggs per gram—is that if you do have vulnerable classes of sheep, lambs, or those lactating moms, and you set those new sheep out on pasture with them, they’re going to put a significant burden on those vulnerable classes. So make your own decisions for your own farm, but what I did personally with those rams that were supposed to be parasite-resistant but actually were just very, very tolerant, I got rid of them. I decided that I just didn’t want that many worms on my farm. I could have dewormed them, but I bought them under the premise that they were resistant, not just tolerant. And I wanted something resistant, and not just tolerant. So if that makes sense to you, maybe that’ll help you as you kind of shop for sheep or kind of go forward and hear those terms “these are parasite-resistant sheep.” I would just advise: take samples to the vet and see if they’re just really, really tolerant, and then decide what you want to do with them from there. But the best situation to be in, guys, is to implement management that makes your sheep not carry a lot of worms—that keeps your system low in terms of worm load.
Flock management strategies for parasite prevention
This is what section number two is going to cover. So once you know, once you have the symptoms down, once you have an understanding of worms and their life cycle, etc., what do you do once you know? Well, number one, rotational grazing—I just talked about it. This was an absolute game changer for us, and the reason this was an absolute game changer was that this really broke the life cycle of that barber’s pole worms. Simply put, guys: our sheep were not eating by their manure day after day. I would move them every, let’s just say, three days, and they would be off of their manure onto fresh grass. That old paddock—it would rest, those worms would die off, and then the sheep would not return until those worms were dead. That just really minimized the amount of worms load that the sheep were carrying. It broke that cycle. So—rotational grazing, rotational grazing, rotational grazing.
Next is regular inspection. So, I used to inspect once per month, and now I inspect quarterly because worms just aren’t as big of a problem as they were at the onset. But once a month, I would just inspect, check the FAMACHA scores, and I would deworm selectively. And now, thanks to the fact that I’ve implemented a lot of what I’m getting ready to teach you, I only need to inspect quarterly for worms, meaning once every three—sometimes it stretches to four—months. Another management practice that you need to implement is just making sure that your sheep have enough protein in their diet. Protein’s going to be absolutely fantastic on spring pasture—on that really, really good April, May, sometimes June pasture. But sometimes when you hit the summer, it can get a little bit deficient. And what I like to do, if I’ve got a pasture that’s just a little bit over mature, is I’ll put a protein lick tub out there to make sure that those protein levels are where they should be, and make sure I’m not having sheep that are sick because their diets just aren’t what they need to be. This year, I actually mowed my pasture to keep it from going over mature, and I was super pleased with that decision this year. So you have a variety of options to keep your pasture in good protein content, so you don’t have to add these supplements. But if you do need to add a supplement, no harm, no foul. It’s better than having to deal with sick sheep.
Another management principle I want to encourage you guys to do is timing your lambing to where you kind of lamb a little bit ahead of the parasite curve. This is something that I started to implement about two or three years ago. So the suggestion was lamb with the pasture and I did that, did okay, but I would hit maybe lambs that were two and three months old at the peak of parasite season, which is about June, and they would get really, really sick. What I did was I moved my lambing back from March to February, so I was lambing about one month ahead of the pasture. And this allowed my lambs to get a lot of good weight on them, to hit that 50 or 60 pounds before that intense parasite season of June and July came on, and much fewer drenches, much less maintenance. It was the best decision I have ever made. So consider timing your lambing just a little bit ahead of pasture to get out of that parasite curve. And another thing that it did for me was it put my ewes in a better shape because those ewes were not hitting peak lactation at peak parasite season. I talk a little bit more about this in my class, Breeding Sheep 101, but this was one of the best choices that I made—just adjusting my lambing back just a bit.
Another really important thing to do is that if you do use conventional dewormers—the chemical methods—make sure that after using those chemical methods, you leave your sheep on a dry lot for 48 hours. The reason you want to do this is because those sheep are passing any parasites through their body and into their manure that did not die as a result of that chemical dewormer. And they’re also passing chemical residuals. So leaving them on a dry lot means that those resistant worms will not go back onto pasture and reinfect the sheep. And it also means that you’re not going to have the chemical residuals if you’re worried about that kind of a thing in your more holistic grazing system. So this is my protocol: about two days after deworming or applying chemical dewormers, I will leave my sheep on a dry lot, and then they get to go back out to pasture happily.
Another method here, guys, and just make sure to write all of these notes down, because the management stuff is really going to be what gets you success as a sheep farmer. So make sure to write your notes. But the winter deworming is something that’s also been really, really helpful for me. And the reason that I deworm in the winter is because of this: I heard—I think it was a seminar or maybe an article that my mom read or relayed to me—but in the winter, all of the parasites are dormant inside of the animal. They’re super smart. It’s scary how smart these single-celled organisms are, but they essentially know that it’s too cold to exit the body of the animals, and so they’re going to stay inside of the animal until it starts to warm up and spring comes. So what I’ll do is I will deworm ahead of the curve. And even if the FAMACHA scores are good, I’ll give my sheep a dewormer midwinter and it kills the massive load that may be inside of them, and it makes spring so much better. So rather than those parasites reviving and reawakening the dawn of spring, they’re dead because I dewormed them in the middle of winter.
Another essential thing, guys, is record keeping. I absolutely love my At-A-Glance planner. I wish that I was making commissions on this thing because this is the second time I’ve plugged it this month. My At-A-Glance monthly planner—I have one for each year that I’ve been farming. I think I missed one year and I regret it forever, but that is a great planner. A lot of people will ask me, “What do you do for record keeping?” And I wish that I had some fancy system to share with you guys, but instead, I keep this planner, and every single day I will write down the tag number, what I did to that sheep, and just management stuff. Guys, you see these empty white boxes here? I just jot down sheep management with a pencil or a pen. Pen is better. But it’s that simple, but keep records. Because what you want to know is you want to know who is needing more dewormer than the other sheep, you want to when you dewormed last, and you want to make some decisions to cull based on that information. So you want to spend some time collecting that information. I’d say my personal standard for myself was that I was not going to cull an animal until I’d been a farmer for 18 months. And that was the best decision that I ever made. Even though I had to put up with a lot of, you know, different things that people told me to cull. They were like, “Why are you putting up with that? Just cull it.” I, number one, learned so much. But number two, within that 18 month period of time, I became a much better manager. I became much better at being a shepherd. And at the end of 18 months, there was a lot that was fixed as a result of me becoming a better manager, and then I was able to make culling decisions based on the fact that these animals were bad, and not just the fact that I was a beginner in sheep farming and my management was bad. So that would be my encouragement to you is just keep really, really tight records and cull after 18 months because you’re going to have the data on all those sheep to make appropriate culling decisions. But that is a big part of management—is deciding when to let something go. You don’t have to do it immediately. Like I said, give yourself some time—18 months. But you do need to at some point decide when to let something go rather than treat it.
Picture this: you are looking out over your 5, 10, maybe 20-plus acres. The sun is setting, and your flock is grazing across a green pasture. Something inside you affirms this is real wealth—at least when it comes to material things. You know how to take care of your sheep, your grazing system is improving your land, and you have a way to direct market each lamb that is born. This is how I feel when I look at my flock, and I want the same for you. So, I put together a free one-hour class that answers some of your most frequently asked questions concerning how I raise, rotational graze, and market my sheep for $480 per head. Go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast to sign up and receive the free on-demand class. What’s more is that I will follow up over the course of three days, providing you with even more free resources—including a free ebook, a free grazing sheep kickstart guide, and a free marketing sheep kickstart guide. This information is worth paying for, but I’m giving it to you for free. Just go to Shepherdess.com/480, or simply click the first link in the show notes of this podcast for how I raise, graze, and market my sheep for $480 each.
Chemical dewormers vs. natural approaches
So this brings us to section number three: these are the conventional methods that you can use to manage worms in your flock. Now guys, these are going to be chemicals. These are going to the things that are given to you by your veterinary office, the things you can find at the tractor supply. And guess what, guys? I advise that everyone, beginner shepherd or not, has these on their shelf. Not because I want to encourage you to build a system around them, but because I want you to think of conventional dewormers as training wheels. They eventually come off, guys. But as you are learning to manage your flock, they may or may not keep you from crashing altogether. So keep proven dewormers on hand, know how to use them, and taper yourself off of these means as you learn to mitigate through management and natural methods that I’ve got upcoming for you. You’re going to use less and less every year, but do not kick yourself for using these conventional dewormers up front. Remember, training wheels, they’re going to come off. Just let them keep you from crashing. So that is that.
When you see tapeworms and roundworms on pasture, that is going to be when an application of Valbazen will come in handy. Valbazene is effective against tapeworms and roundworms, but not the barber’s pole worm. It used to be, but the barber’s pole worm has garnered resistance against this particular drug, and it is no longer effective for barber’s pole worm, but it’s very effective for tapeworms and roundworms. For the barber’s pole worm, I want you to consider keeping Prohibit and or Cydectin on your shelf. They’re both whitewormers, but they’re pretty effective across the country for sheep, and they have not garnered a massive amount of resistance. If you are in Australia, look at something like Zolvix. I think they have Zolvix over there, and that’s a very effective dewormer as far as I have heard. It’s a new one. So that’s great for barber’s pole worm. When we’re talking about coccidiosis, I personally use Total Toltrazuril, and you’re going to find that at Shepherdess.com. This is not intended for human or animal consumption. It’s not FDA approved. So if you do buy it and use it to treat coccidosis, you must take your own risks, but this is a product that is approved in Canada and in other countries. It’s just that the FDA says it’s not suitable for animals in the United States. So, I have to make my own decisions and decide if I’m okay with it, and so will you. But it’s worked very, very well for me in terms of treating coccidiosis at my farm.
And just as a general warning here, guys, the more you use chemical dewormers, the less effective they become. Parasites are so smart, and essentially they become immune to every drug that you throw at them. That’s why that first drug Valbazen and things like Ivermectin—those are no longer effective in the United States broad spectrum for barber’s pole worm. And once you overuse a product, it produces resistance, period. That happens with all chemical dewormers, and that’s why management is so important. Upcoming are two ways to maintain the efficiency of these dewormers on your farm, but just remember, guys, you want to start juggling. You want to start doing some of the natural stuff. You want to start making sure you got your good grazing systems in place because total reliance on chemicals only is just going to be a dead end. I fully say have them on your shelf, use them as your training wheels, but just think about the future. Make sure that you’re adding some management principles in there to where you’re using less and less of them year over year. That’s the ultimate goal.
Number one: in order to keep these dewormers working on your farm is to use correct dosage rates. So I’m going to go ahead and drop a link to Clemson University’s dosage rates for these particular products. But when you flip the product over, the backside of the envelope is going to have a dosage rate, but just be fully aware that’s a maintenance rate. So if you’ve got an animal that is needing a treatment, you want to use the Clemson dewormer chart. You want to use the dosage rates. So use the correct dosage rate or you’re going to build up resistance a lot faster than otherwise, and then really respect that 48 hour quarantine time after deworming. That’s going to be very, very good for keeping those dewormers effective on your farm and avoiding the resistance that does ultimately come with the chemicals.
Okay, natural methods. These are natural methods that have worked for me. I’m probably going to start getting some comments about garlic, diatomaceous earth, pumpkin seeds—various things that maybe people, on the other side of the screen, have had work. Feel free to leave those and in what conditions that you are using them. Make sure to cite your rainfall as well. But upcoming are some natural methods that have really mitigated parasite pressure for me, and very, very parasite prone areas. Oh, I might venture to say, though it’s always risky to kind of say this: I might venture to say that if it works for me in my very parasite-prone environment, it’s probably going to work for you to add some of these natural anti-parasitics into your management.
All right, natural methods. Number one: quality minerals. Make sure your sheep have quality minerals. I love the Redmond sheep mineral. These are available at Shepherdess.com. Again, buying from Shepherdess.com helps to support these free meetups, and keeps them going. So if you can, buy your sheep supplies at Shepherdess.com so that I can keep making you guys these free resources. But I love Redmond sheep mineral, and it is a fantastic, highly recommended product as it concerns me. Protein—making sure your sheep’s diet has an adequate amount of protein is going to make them very naturally parasite resistant. So if you have a good looking pasture, like on picture number one—that’s got a lot of clovers in it, and has some good rye grasses in it. This is a spring pasture, so this is the peak that you’ve got going on. You don’t need to add any protein supplement to this kind of a pasture. But when your pasture maybe gets a little burnt in the summer or a little sparse in the winter, consider adding some alfalfa pellets or alfalfa hay. Add a 16 to 21% protein percentage. That it’s going to do wonders to keep your animals very resistant naturally to parasites. Lick tubs at 16% protein are another option to stretch your pasture and improve your animal performance.
This is going to be a controversial one, guys, but this has been so effective for me and this is one of those things I have to put up a disclaimer: use at your own risk because copper toxicity is a thing for sheep. But I give my sheep a copper oxide wire particle bolus—which is just like a little pill full of copper particles—and I give them that in April every year. I’ve been doing it for about two or three years. I’ve not had one single sheep die, and my parasite problems have been much, much, much, much, less since adding copper into my regimen. The reason being is that copper deficiency produces anemia and parasites also produce anemia. So if you’ve got a sheep that’s struggling with both copper deficiency and parasite problems, they’re going to be a lot more sensitive to those parasites. So play around with adding a little bit of copper to your regimen. What I did was I went ahead and just did a test group one year—a very small test group. I gave them copper boluses and I was like, if they die, okay. I can take it. I can take the loss of 10 sheep, which would have been hard, but I thought it was worth it. It really was. None of them died. In fact, they went through the summer resisting parasites way better than the rest of my flock. And the next year, I gave every single adult sheep in my flock a copper oxide wire particle bolus, and never had a sheep die of copper toxicity. When it comes to goats, you do actually need to give them a copper bolus probably twice a year. I’ve given my goats copper bolus twice a year, at least, and that’s a minimum for goats because they need a lot more copper.
All right, this may or may not be the moment that you guys have all been waiting for: I’m going to give you my vet-tested results from the deworming with lye. For some context here, I saw a video and was emailed several times about this particular concept of using lye to deworm your livestock. This guy has about 2,000 views on YouTube, and he’s deworming pigs. He says you can deworm anything. He’s deworming cows, he’s deworming goats. I saw this video, his animals were slick and shiny, and he said he’s been doing it for 17 years. But I said, I need to take this to the vet and see if it’s actually the lye that is producing the deworming of these animals, and it’s not just something random on his farm that he’s got an advantage of. So, I’ve got to put up this disclaimer: this is not a recommendation for you to use lye as a dewormer for your livestock. This is no recommendation. I’m simply sharing results from a vet-tested experiment. Lye is toxic and may kill your livestock or dissolve the lining of their gut. That’s all of my disclaimer, but I have to put it up there. So basically the lye test went this way: it was half a teaspoon of lye dissolved in water, but took about two to three cups to dissolve that half teaspoon—that’s what I did—in two gallons of feed. So, basically, dissolve the lye in just enough water to wet that feed completely. And then you mix the water with the feed, making sure all the feed is coated.
Here are the results: I did not apply this to my sheep. I have a goat herd of about five or six, and they get to be my test subjects for all things scary. So I did this for my goats, and I had a group of five goats—two kids, four adults—so it was a really good spread. And those kids were in there, so I was able to see how the young goats reacted to it. I did four gallons of feed, which is just a little bit less than a five gallon bucket, and I did one teaspoon of lye dissolved in water. And that was what I considered a dose. And I just gave them this to eat just like their daily feed ration. So here are some original numbers: so Daisy was having a really, really rough summer, and she had an egg count of 5,400 eggs per gram. She also had bottle jaw. I did not do a very good job of taking care of her because she was in bad shape, but she was a good test subject at 5,400 eggs per gram. And Maria, my second dairy goat, was also pretty loaded down at 1,250 eggs per gram of the barber’s pole worm. So I did a first dose, and these are all numbers from the veterinarian, so I paid up to have a quantitative test done by a veterinarian. I did not do it myself. I made sure that a professional was doing it. The first dose, Daisy went from 5,400 eggs per gram to 1,200 eggs per gram with one treatment of lye in her feed. Maria went down from 1,250 to 750, so a really significant decrease.
But after that first dose, these numbers were still really high. These were still numbers that I would probably follow up and treat again because they’re still very high. So what I did was I took a risk, and about five days after giving them lye for the first time, I gave them a second administration of lye-coated feed. And I was amazed. I took that fecal sample to the vet to get them checked after the second dose. Daisy had gone from 5,400 eggs per gram down to 150 eggs per gram after the second treatment, and Maria was down to 300 eggs per gram. In fact, the vet called me. He said, “There are no worms in here.” And I said, “There’s always some worms in there. How many are there?” “Well, it’s just 150 and 300. There’s really no worms in here, so you don’t really need to treat.” So, yes. Lye as a dewormer for livestock is vet-tested and highly effective. This was administered in a controlled environment. That means that they were in a pen and being just given dry hay and feed. So I knew that they were not eating any other anti-parasitic plants that may have brought their loads down. There was nothing else given to them besides this lye-soaked feed.
And also as a little bit of a side note: Daisy was also given a copper bolus, you’re going to notice that her numbers dipped even below Maria’s, but I think it was because that copper bolus kind of helped bring them down even more. And then I gave these two dosages about five days apart, which is very risky. The man in the video has been doing this for 17 years; he says he gives it to him once a month. So two times, five days apart was probably a little bit risky for me, but I just wanted to give it as much as I could. All of that said, I observed no negative symptoms on behalf of the animals whatsoever. If the lye was burning their gut lining or causing troubles internally, I would be watching for things like blood in the stools, things like variation or diarrhea or whatever—nothing. There were no negative symptoms. Daisy’s bottle jaw went away. She’s now living her best life. Maria is giving me a lot of milk. She’s a dairy goat, and thankfully, the lye does not have a withdrawal period. So I’m not telling you to feed your animals lye. I’m not telling you to use this as a dewormer. I’m just saying these are vet-tested results. So, you’re welcome. Buy me a coffee to help pay for all of the egg count bills that I went through to get this information for you or buy a copy of my book, The Basics of Raising Sheep on Pasture to support this research for you guys. That is the end of the presentation.
All right, I’m going to go ahead and get to the question and answers here, guys, and then we’re going to close out for the night. This was so much fun. Thank you for joining me to talk about worms for one full hour. Tanner says, “I am new to farming. We have only one dam and rain for water. Do you have any tips for excessively dry farming in Queensland, Australia?” I want you to go and look at my series on YouTube. Type in Shepherdess in Australia. That was exactly why I went to Australia—to get tips for people farming in an excessively dry environment. You’re going to find, I went to Queensland and filmed two operations there, and then I went to California here in the United States—very drought-stricken—and filmed one operation there. So if you search Shepherdess in Australia on YouTube, you’re going to find the full series. I highly recommend that you opt in for the full-length episodes because they’re going to give you a lot more information than the short ones, but that’s where you’ll find the answer to your question there. Teresa says, “Is it only green grass or can sheep live off of dry brown grass?” I’ve seen sheep and goats do very, very well on dry brown grass. Typically, you always will see a lick tub in the paddock with that grass, but they really are thrifty and will do well on that pasture with just that small supplement to bring the protein up overall.
Elise says, “How do you catch your sheep to check eyelids?” Elise, I have a small pen that I will run them into, pack them so tight like a can of sardines that they can’t run from you, and that’s the best way to handle sheep—just not giving them a whole lot of room to run around. Because once you have your sheep in a large pen and you start that chasing game, it’s going to be a really long, hard day. So I will really just pack my sheep in a pen that is very, very tight and work them that way. Nick kind of answered you, Elise, on that: “We use cattle panels to set up a bud box.” And I like to use the Lakeland Farm and Ranch direct aluminum easy panels for my sheep. Those are amazing, worth their weight in gold, and I use those to set up little pens wherever I need them. Katie says, “Does anyone know if potbelly in a goat is a symptom of cocci as well?” Katie, I don’t want to say that it always is because goats can get a potbelly just as a result of having a huge day of grazing. But if you’re seeing those other symptoms like diarrhea or stunted growth rate, that’s a good chance that might be a little clue that they have coccidiosis going on in them.
Cindy says, “Grace, my vet said we had 50 eggs per gram. Is that possible?” Yeah, if you’ve got only 50 eggs per gram in your manure samples, that’s a very good number. That’s a low number, so congratulations there. Jedidiah says, “How many sheep or goats can you run on five acres of pasture? The pasture is very poor.” So Jedidiah, with that, you might just want to start with one to two per acre. Just build up and add to your flock, or just keep the lambs as you go and grow. But it’s better if you’re considering that your pasture is very poor to start small and save all of the lambs as you can expand than to buy too many, because what happens is that sheep and goats reproduce really, really fast, and in your first lambing or first kidding, you’re going to have a lot. If you start big, you’re going to get really big, really fast and potentially overwhelmed. So with five acres, start with one to two per acre, and save all the extra lambs that you can.
All right. Cindy says, “Have you used Corid?” Yes, Cindy, I have used Corid. I really don’t like the product at all. Number one is because they tell you to put it in the water, and when sheep detect anything fishy in the water, they will not drink it. That’s what happened with Corid. Corid has a very bitter flavor, and I couldn’t get my sheep to drink enough to be an effective treatment. Just maybe my sheep’s attitude, but that’s what it was. In terms of drenching with Corid, I did have some small success, but Corid severely depletes your sheep of vitamin B12. So you’ve got to follow up really quickly with a vitamin B supplement if you’re going to use that product. I switched to the Total Toltrazuril, which again is not FDA approved and not for human or animal consumption. I use it at my own risk. You will have to as well. But I use that product, Total Toltrazuril, and it is amazing for coccidia. It’s a one and done dosage rate. With Corid, you have to go for four days straight dosing this animal again and again, and I don’t like it. If you guys want to give your input on Corid, go ahead and do so, but my experience with it is no good.
It wasn’t terrible. It cost about $200 to get all of those fecal samples done, but it was worth it to me to know. I would probably use the lye treatment again. I don’t think I would use it twice in a week. It could really cause some stomach burning. One of the biggest risks when you’re using lye is that it will burn the internal organs of the sheep or goat, but at such a small dosage rate of half a teaspoon to two gallons, the guy on the video was mixing it into the water with his bare hands. And if it’s going to burn the gut lining of your animal, it’s probably going to burn his hands as well. If it doesn’t burn his hands, it probably won’t burn the lining. That said, I did use gloves to mix all of my lye and I didn’t touch it with my bare hands, but it’s such a small amount that I did not see problems in my goats. I’m not going to say you’re not going to have problems, but I didn’t see any. Dawn says, “Have you cycled different commercial wormers? Pesticide companies rotate active ingredients yearly.” Dawn, I will use one until it doesn’t work for me anymore. And that’s kind of the recommendation. Just use one dewormer until it does work for you and then move on to a different class. Some people will rotate dewormers. I’ve heard it’s an effective solution for them, it’s just not my management.
Selinda says, “Are you going to keep using the lye?” Selinda, I’m going to use it on my goat herd for about one year probably before I consider giving it to my sheep, maybe. I’m a little nervous about giving it to my sheep because my income kind of rides on the sheep. And if I was to go out and find my sheep did die or have internal bleeding from the lye, I’d be at much greater loss than losing five or six goats. So it’s kind of the risk I’m assessing, and I’m probably going to just leave it to my goats for a period of a year, and watch for symptoms. Nick says, “Could you please address liver flukes and giant liver fluke for Worms 201?” Nick, I will probably have to look into that. I use a broad spectrum dewormer, and what that does is it kills a lot of different kinds of worms in addition to the barber’s pole worm. So I’m probably treating for liver fluke without even knowing it, but I don’t think I’ve ever had much problems with them. I know they have really big problems with those in the UK, the liver flukes. Brandon says, “Chicory or other forages containing tannins as a natural dewormer.” What are my opinions? Not done any of the formal testing and not had any success personally, so no input there, Brandon. Not because I don’t want to, just because I don’t have it.
Kelsey says, “How much copper bolus per adult sheep?” I bolus once a year in April, and I think the boluses you’re going to find at Shepherdess.com are… Well, whatever the copper bolus is at Shepherdess.com is exactly what I use for my sheep, and it works fantastic. Carl says, “Do you still have your Bullnose Ford flatbed pickup?” Carl, I’m glad you remembered it, but no, because I’m going to confess that I am really bad at driving a stick shift, and was causing my dad and brothers a massive amount of anxiety as they tried to train me to drive a stick shift, and I decided that I was going to sell it to somebody who knew how to drive a stick shift and give it a better life. So no, I don’t. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to drive a stick. Michael says, “What do professional egg counts cost?” It was $48 per animal per pop. So I think it was $48, something between $30 and $40. Bailey says, “How did you decide the amount of lye to use?” Bailey, I just used that viral video and followed his instructions exactly. Christina says, “If you do not practice rotational grazing for your rams for 10 months, how do you manage parasites for them?” My ram stays in a clean pen and he eats hay, so there are no parasites on the hay.
Sebastian says, “How do you manage predators?” Sebastian, I have really tight fencing and a large pet dog that roams the perimeter. I don’t have a formal livestock guardian, but predator pressure is fairly low at my place. I don’t think my system would work well everywhere. And that said, last year I did have an attack, and they came in and they took about six lambs overnight, which was super, super painful. So I’m not immune to predators. It’s just the pressure is so light that I haven’t gone to the trouble of keeping a dog so far. Carl says, “I have two wethers to sell this far. How do you recommend marketing them for sale? What methods are the best?” Carl, unless you have built up an email list for yourself—which is what I do, and I sell all of my sheep through my email list—I would take it to Facebook and advertise them locally on Facebook. Okay, 44 new messages. Y’all have some really good questions. I’m going to try to stick around and get them all done tonight, but I’m going to go for Don’s question: “Have you cycled different commercial wormers?” Oh no, somebody’s testifying that they tried the lye as well, and it worked super, super great. Don says, “Commercial dewormers one year, homemade dewormers another year. Keep rotating them to prevent immunity. Do you have free-choice charcoal available?” Because he found that animals eat charcoal when parasites start increasing. So that was some suggestions from Don, guys. Take those and make notes of them and consider them for your farm.
Michael says, “Can you show the lye that you were using?” It’s just the soap making stuff: Red Crown, high-test lye. That’s what I was using. I think this thing should last me like the rest of my life at just one teaspoon per dosage. I mean, it’s cost effective if nothing else. Okay, if you guys missed the lye chat, I’m going to go ahead and put the lye results up here. But in short, yeah, the lye worked famously. You’re going to have to watch in terms of using it longterm for things like internal bleeding or anything that says that your animal’s guts are in distress because lye is caustic and it can do that. But the reality is, is that it’s such a small amount. We’re talking one teaspoon in four gallons of feed. It didn’t prove harmful for my animals. Do your own research, take your own risks, but my animals are fine. Dawn says, “Have you fed your sheep or goats cedar branches?” Sometimes they will eat them of their own accord, but I’ve not tracked as to whether that’s a good antiparasitic or not. I heard it is, but I have not done the formal research.
Carl says, “Sad to hear about the Bricknose. I said wrong, but understandable. Thanks for the marketing advice of Marketplace.” Yes, Carl, it was hard to admit that, but I really felt like it was important to give it a better life, and also alleviate my father and my brothers of the stress of trying to teach me how to drive stick. It’s still on my bucket list before I die because driving a stick, learning to use a firearm, and there was one more thing I was going to do. I was able to learn how to use a firearm, but the stick was really hard. My dad was so stressed. Well, I don’t think I’d say my dad was stressed. My dad and brothers were a little bit irritated by the fact that the gears just kept grinding and then the thing kept shutting off—that’s how bad it was. But just trying to be honest here. Michael asks, “What were the panels that you said were worth their weight in gold?” That would be the Lakeland Farm and Ranch aluminum easy panels.
KT says, “Do you have a goal to eventually cut that winter dewormer once you have a healthy biome to maintain? If so, what is your runaway game plan for that?” So she’s referring to the winter deworming that I’ll do to basically clear the load before spring. KT, I would say it’s not in my immediate plan to get rid of that. I may come to a place where the lye works really well, and I’ll just give them a dose of lye to kill those dormant parasites over winter. I’m at least a year off from that. So I say if any plan, I would probably find a natural anthelmintic—which is a natural antiparasitic—and administer that in the wintertime. But I really think that winter deworming is really, really important. It gets rid of the load that is dormant inside of the animal before spring awakes and those parasites awake. And I’ve really noticed that the parasite problems have been way less with that particular practice. Bailey says, “Does lye work with coccidia?” Yes, it does. It kills every worm in there, according to the man in the video and according to that fecal results. The guy on the phone said, “There are no worms. Your animals have no worms, you’re fine.” They did have some worms, but the second dose was 150 eggs per gram and 300 eggs per gram. So basically none. Caleb says, “Rest in peace, Grace’s pick up.” It didn’t die, Caleb. It’s just with a better owner. It’s leaving its better life. So it’s still alive.
All right, Rebecca says, “How would you do a lye treatment if your sheep don’t get anything but grass and hay?” Rebecca, I would just buy some alfalfa pellets. Just make it a short-term thing. Just buy a bag of alfalfa pellets and soak that alfalfa pellet in the lye. But your sheep are not going to eat wet hay and your goats aren’t either, so just get some pellets. Ethan gives a testimonial here: he says, “In the case of the dead sheep standing that I treated last week, I gave three different classes of dewormer to kick the infestation, and they were ivermectin and a couple of others that I don’t recognize—non FDA-approved stuff—and the animal is still standing by the grace of God.” Okay, amen. Ethan, congratulations. I know how that feels. James says, “Half of a teaspoon dissolved in a gallon of water is what the man on YouTube used. I used one tablespoon per gallon and wet the feed just enough for it to be damp.” So one tablespoon per gallon is a lot more than a half of a teaspoon, so that’s quite an increase. You may actually hit some internal burning with that kind of an increase, but I’m glad if it worked for you, James. But if you guys use the one tablespoon instead, be very, very careful because that’s a lot more than half of a teaspoon.
Ethan says, “If I added electrolyte solution to my water, does anyone have any insights on whether or not my sheep will refuse to drink it?” If it’s a sweet electrolyte, I think they’ll be fine if it’s palatable. If it’s unpalatable, my sheep are super stubborn and unless it’s sweltering hot, they really refuse water that’s been tainted with anything. Theresa asks, “Once a month or once a year on the lye treatment?” Theresa, the man in the video says once a month. I don’t recommend that, but that’s what the man on the video said and everything else he said kind of worked. Bailey asks, “What is the video that talks about lye dosing?” Bailey, go to YouTube and search lye as livestock dewormer, and you’re going to see it. You’re going to want to look for the one that has 200,000 views. Okay. Yes, Teresa affirms that the grinding of the gears is as bad as nails on a chalkboard. Nathan says, “What do you work with in the winter?” Nathan, I would advise Prohibit or Cydectin, and Cydectin is more broadly effective. I might go for Cydectin over Prohibit in the winter. Nehemiah says, “Would you consider testing the lye on a few sheep?” Absolutely, I would. Yes. Okay, guys, appreciate it, excellent. Okay, looking forward to seeing you all next time.
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