How To Deworm Sheep And Goats: Lessons From A Michigan Training
On a chilly June morning in Matobo, a young farmer squints at a ewe’s eyelid, trying to judge whether the pale pink colour means worms. The goats are thin after a long wet season, kids are scouring, and the dip tank supervisor has only one piece of advice: “Just buy any dewormer at the shops.”
Across Zimbabwe and much of Africa, small ruminant farmers are battling the same invisible enemy that worries their counterparts in Michigan, USA — internal parasites. Managed badly, they quietly drain blood, stunt growth, trigger abortions, and erode profits. Managed well, they become a controllable risk rather than a crisis.
A recent programme by Michigan State University Extension (MSU Extension) shows how structured training can transform parasite control. While the dates and venues are American, the principles behind their sheep and goat deworming course are directly relevant to Southern African flocks.
Why Internal Parasites Are Such A Big Problem
Farmers raising sheep and goats face many challenges — rising feed and input costs, climate swings, and disease. Yet one of the biggest health threats, according to MSU Extension educator Michael Metzger, is internal parasites.
In his article for Farm Progress, Metzger describes parasite infections as a “significant obstacle in any farming operation” that can damage both animal welfare and farm profitability if not controlled properly.
FFA Explainer:
Internal parasites (worms) in sheep and goats live in the stomach and intestines, feeding on blood or digested feed. Heavy burdens cause anaemia, weight loss, diarrhoea, bottle jaw (swelling under the jaw), poor milk production, and death, especially in lambs and kids.
In warm, humid regions like much of Zimbabwe, Kenya, and Malawi, worms complete their life cycles faster. Rains wash eggs from dung onto pasture, where larvae wait on grass tips for the next graze. Over time, resistance builds when the same drugs are used repeatedly without proper diagnosis or dosing — a problem MSU Extension is tackling head-on.
Inside Michigan’s Parasite-Control Training
MSU Extension designed a blended training: a four-part evening webinar series followed by an optional in-person workshop. The focus is helping farmers understand why parasites behave as they do and how to build farm-specific control plans.
The sessions, held on Tuesday evenings from 7 to 9 p.m. between April 14 and May 5, covered:
- Session 1 (April 14): The impact of parasites in sheep and goats, and the basics of their life cycles.
- Session 2 (April 21): Factors that determine risk of infection and grazing management strategies to reduce exposure.
- Session 3 (April 28): Control and infection-monitoring approaches, including methods to maintain “refugia”.
- Session 4 (May 5): Pulling it all together into a sustainable, integrated parasite-control programme for each farm.
Recordings were made available two days after each live session, broadening access to busy farmers.
FFA Explainer:
Refugia means deliberately leaving some worms unexposed to dewormers, so drug-sensitive genes stay in the population. This slows the development of resistance. It can involve leaving the healthiest animals untreated or managing grazing so not every worm is hit with medicine every time.
From Webinar To Hands-On: FAMACHA And Fecal Egg Counts
After the webinars, MSU Extension offered an in-person workshop at the MSU Sheep Teaching and Research Center and the main campus. Scheduled from noon to 4 p.m., the optional training focused on two practical tools every serious sheep or goat farmer should know: FAMACHA scoring and fecal egg counting.
Participants learnt:
- How to use the FAMACHA system to check for anaemia in sheep, scoring the colour of the lower eyelid to decide which animals need treatment.
- How to perform quantitative fecal egg counts in a lab setting, measuring worm burdens in dung samples.
Farmers who completed the workshop received a FAMACHA anaemia-scoring card and a training certificate, but only after attending or listening to all four webinars — a sign that MSU wanted understanding, not just attendance.
For smallholder farmers in regions like Matabeleland South or Masvingo, these same tools could radically cut medicine costs and slow resistance, by treating only the animals that truly need drenching.
What Farmers Actually Learn About Deworming
The MSU Small Ruminant Extension Team framed their course around several key questions every farmer should be able to answer:
- Which parasites matter most in their climate and production system?
- What factors increase risk — for example, stocking rate, age of animals, grazing height, and rainfall patterns?
- Which grazing strategies can reduce exposure, such as longer rest periods, mixed-species grazing, or avoiding very short grass?
- How to monitor infection using eyelid colour, body condition, weight gain, and fecal egg counts.
- Which dewormers still work — and how past misuse has led to drug-resistant worms.
- How to design a farm-specific parasite plan that combines grazing, genetics, and targeted treatments.
The programme cost US$25 per household for the webinar series and an extra US$30 per person for the workshop, capped at 50 participants and with no cancellation fee for early withdrawals. For that investment, Metzger argues, farmers gain the knowledge to “reduce animal health and productivity losses while minimising the advance of parasite-resistance problems.”
How This Applies To Zimbabwean And African Flocks
While MSU’s event is specific to Michigan and the U.S. Midwest and Northeast, the themes echo across African communal grazing lands and resettlement schemes.
In districts like Insiza, Gutu, and Lupane, goat and sheep owners already wrestle with:
- High worm pressure after extended rainy seasons.
- Drench bottles with unclear dose instructions.
- Borrowed drugs shared between neighbours, sometimes expired.
- No routine faecal testing, so treatments are guesswork.
Replacing guesswork with training — whether through online webinars, WhatsApp groups, or ward-based workshops — could mirror the MSU approach. Cooperative unions, veterinary departments, and NGOs could collaborate to:
- Teach the basics of worm life-cycles and local high-risk periods.
- Demonstrate FAMACHA scoring in the field.
- Set up simple faecal egg count services at district vet labs or colleges.
- Encourage record-keeping on dewormer use and responses.
International guidance from FAO reinforces MSU’s message: effective parasite control isn’t just about more drugs; it’s about smarter, integrated management.
From Michigan To Matobo: Towards Integrated Control
The MSU programme places heavy emphasis on “integrated parasite control programmes” — not one-off treatments. This aligns with UN SDG 2 and AU Agenda 2063 goals of boosting livestock productivity sustainably, and with Zimbabwe’s National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1) focus on animal health.
For a goat co-operative in Nkayi or a women’s sheep group in Mwenezi, an integrated programme might include:
- Rotational grazing to avoid overgrazed, larva-heavy patches.
- Breeding for hardier animals that cope better with worms.
- Targeted selective treatment based on FAMACHA and body condition, not blanket dosing.
- Regular, affordable faecal checks at local labs or mobile clinics.
- Careful rotation of dewormer classes to slow resistance.
MSU Extension’s approach shows that even in a high-tech setting, the backbone of parasite control remains farmer knowledge. Zoom calls and campus labs help — but the real work still happens at the water trough, in the handling pen, and out on pasture.
Back in Matobo, our young farmer lowers the ewe’s eyelid again, this time with more confidence after a field training by a local vet who borrowed ideas from international FAMACHA courses. The colour is a healthy red. No drench today. Fewer drugs in the long run, stronger animals, and a flock that can stand up to both changing weather and stubborn worms — that’s the quiet promise behind programmes like Michigan’s, wherever they’re adapted and applied.
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