Évaluer le poids des petits ruminants sans peser

National audienc

Predicting the body mass of goats from body measurements

International audienceThis paper deals with designing a cheap and easy-to-attain method to replace weighing for estimating the body mass of goats. Several models on the relationship of heart girth (HG) to live weight (LW) were evaluated using Creole of Guadeloupe goats (376 males and 258 growing females). The best fit was obtained with a Gompertz model: LW = 155 * exp(-7.91 * exp(-0.0215 * HG)), which provided an adjusted R² = 0.98 and a 95% confidence interval of the prediction values below 5% within most of the LW range. The LW of breeding goats (420) was fitted by the following quadratic model taking into account the HG and paunch girth (PG): LW = -28.1 + 0.539 * HG + 0.00221 * PG², which provided an adjusted R² = 0.95 and a 95% confidence interval of the prediction values below 1% within most of the LW range. The first model allows a tape measure graduated in kg to be used on goats except breeding females. The second model allows the building of an abacus to provide the estimated LWs of breeding goats from the HG and PG values. Further correction might be achieved by adding the goat body condition score. Such cheap tools should be very useful for goat farmers, most of whom lack reliable weighing devices

Répartition du risque d'infestation au sein d'un troupeau de petits-ruminants au pâturage tournant

National audienc

Effectiveness of several anthelmintics to control a Strongyloides sp. outbreak in Creole-de-Guadeloupe male kids aged 7 months

Notice à reprendre pas de clé UT au 03 Octobre 2018International audienceRoutine faecal examination of a herd of weaned male goats revealed heavy infections with gastrointestinal strongyles (GIS) and Strongyloides sp. Moxidectin (routinely dosed at 0.3 mg·kg−1, i.e., 1.5 times the sheep dose), although fully effective against GIS, failed to control Strongyloides sp., with an estimated faecal egg count reduction (FECR) of only 55.5%. In addition, levamisole (11.25 mg·kg−1) and ivermectin (0.3 mg·kg−1) also failed to control Strongyloides sp., with FECRs of 1.4% and 53.5%, respectively. On the other hand, albendazole (7.5 mg·kg−1) and netobimin (11.25 mg·kg−1 and 22.5 mg·kg−1) reduced by 96.3–99.9% the Strongyloides sp. faecal egg counts according to dose and remained effective, although, in the past, this drug family has been used extensively on the same farm and was no longer effective against GIS. Albendazole or netobimin at 3 times the dose for sheep may be effective for Strongyloides sp. control in case of severe infection

Automatic activity tracking of goats using drone camera

International audienceMonitoring the position of animals in the outdoors can provide useful information in ecology and in agriculture. A common method is to use active sensors, such as GPS, to record their positions at constant intervals of time. But using active sensors can rapidly become expensive when several animals have to be monitored at the same time. Another method is to use a passive sensor to monitor the entire flock of animals. In this article, we propose a method to process images taken by a commercial drone in order to automate the tracking of animal activities. We developed a method that automatically detects goats from the images and tracks their activity using a combination of thresholding and supervised classification methods. We tested our method on 571 drone images taken over 11 days and found a sensitivity of 74% for animal detection and 78.3% for activity detection

Longevity, an adaptation trait of Creole goats to tropical climate

National audienc

Résistance aux anthelminthiques des parasites gastro-intestinaux des petits ruminants - résultats d'une enquête en Guadeloupe

National audienc