What is FAMACHA?
Famacha
A very simple test or “assay”, known as the FAMACHA anaemia guide, has been developed by African scientists in South Africa and is being used increasingly widely. Most importantly, the FAMACHA test not only indicates which animals in a flock need treatment, it also shows which animals don’t need to be treated. By indicating those animals not needing treatment, farmers are saved the cost of unnecessary treatment. But, even more important, the FAMACHA test can also help to prevent the development of drug resistance in the worms, prolonging the effectiveness of useful chemicals.
So far, the FAMACHA system has been developed for one species of stomach parasite, which infects sheep and goats, but it is by far the most important species: the wireworm or Haemonchus contortus. Hopefully, equally low-cost and simple to use systems will be developed for use for other worm parasites.
Prolonging drug effectiveness
Drug resistance to internal and external parasites is a widespread and serious problem. As farmers use drugs to protect their livestock they unintentionally store up problems for the future. This happens because no drug is so effective that it kills every pathogen or parasite, and even if only one wireworm individual in thousands survives, and it does so because it alone is resistant to that chemical, it goes on to replicate, and its drug-resistant progeny soon replace the original drug-susceptible population. Then, as farmers see their chemicals giving poorer control, they may use the chemical more often or at higher doses, increasing the level of resistance.
I became certified in the FAMACHA method in September of 2010. I also took a parasitology course and learned how to combine the famacha method with a fecal sample in order to more effectively treat/not treat our goats. This has been very helpful to us. In the future I hope to be proficient enough in fecal exams to offer this service here on our farm in order to do our part in preventing drug resistance problems.
The above information and more can be found on the following web page:
Kelly Montgomery
