Stress free oral
medication in captive cervids
Garga
M. Das 1, Anupam Srivastav1,
Debashish Chakraborty1,
S.K. Gupta 2 & Parag Nigam 3
1,3 Wildlife Institute of India, P.O. Box # 18, Chandrabani, Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand
248001, India
2 Department of Veterinary Parasitology, CCS Harayana
Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana 125004, India
Email: 3 nigamp@wii.gov.in
(corresponding author)
Date of
publication (online): 26 September 2009
Date of
publication (print): 26 September 2009
ISSN 0974-7907
(online) | 0974-7893 (print)
Editor: Jacob V. Cheeran
Manuscript
details:
Ms # o1897
Received 03
December 2007
Final received
15 April 2008
Finally accepted
26 May 2009
Citation: Das, G.M., A. Srivastav, D. Chakraborty, S.K.Gupta & P. Nigam (2009). Stress free oral
medication in captive cervids. Journal of
Threatened Taxa 1(9): 495-496.
Copyright: © Garga M.Das, Anupam
Srivastav, Debashish Chakraborty, S.K.Gupta & Parag Nigam 2009. Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. JoTT allows
unrestricted use of this article in any medium for non-profit purposes,
reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and
the source of publication.
Acknowledgement: The authors
thank the Director, Wildlife Institute of India for financial and
administrative support; the Chief Wildlife Warden, Haryana for according
necessary permission to initiate the study; and the Dean, College of Veterinary
Sciences, CCS HAU, Hisar for technical support during
the study. Cooperation and support of the staff at Hisar
Deer Park is acknowledged.
Captive wild
animals need medication on number of occasions ranging from illness to diet
supplementation or for immobilization.
Medication in such situations is either administered orally by mixing
required drug/agent in feed (Andrea et al. 1994) or parenterally
through hand held systems or remote drug delivery systems (Harthoorn
1973). These procedures have their own limitations
as there is a practical difficulty in treating individuals owing to the risk
from the animals to the handler, chances of injury/trauma due to struggling
during physical capture for both the animal and the handler and most
importantly animal developing stress. Animals under stress may respond
differently and an exaggerated response can be detrimental to the animal and
may lead to shock and even be fatal.
Minimizing stress greatly increases the chance of successful
management. The other challenge is in
ensuring that if not all, at least majority of the animals receive required
quantity of drug.
Oral medication
in herd situations offers little control over individual drug dosage, quantity
of drug consumed by the animal and depends greatly on social structure, animal
dominance, drug palatability and acceptability.
Parenteral delivery on the other hand involves
placing the animals under undue stress during capture for direct delivery,
while in remote delivery, the problem of stress coupled with individual animal
identification persists as the same animal may receive drugs more than once
while some animals may not receive medication at all. The chances of mortality in even healthy
animals as a result of chemical/physical capture cannot be ruled out (Arnemo et al. 2006).
Animals in
captivity are highly susceptible to both endo and ecto-parasitic infestations. This may further be compounded due to high
stocking density, poor sanitation and hygiene practices and non-elimination of
the infected individuals by natural processes operating in free ranging
condition. In Indian conditions, helminthic infections are common amongst captive cervids and are often difficult to eliminate because of
confinement and changed environmental conditions of the hosts (Acharjyo 2001).
Accordingly a
novel method of habituating the animals to feed individually in separate
containers and mixing required quantity of drug in the feed being given was
tried out at Deer Park, Hissar. This was part of the study to assess the
effect of anthelmintic on parasitic load in captive cheetal (Axis axis) and
was conducted from November 2006 to January 2007.
Study area
The
Deer Park is located on the outskirts of Hissar, 10km
on the Dhansu road and is spread over 16.99ha. A
total of 30 Chital (Axis axis) along with nine
Sambar (Rusa unicolor), 15 Black Buck (Antilope
cervicapra), two Chinkara
(Gazella bennettii)
and one Nilgai (Boselaphus
tragocamelus) are maintained in single large enclosure. The main vegetation of the Park and
surrounding areas comprises of Prosopis spp.,
Acacia spp., Dalbergia spp., Ficus spp., and plantation of
Eucalyptus spp. in addition to 2.42 ha. of fodder
cultivation. The fodder cultivation plot
is irrigated by an irrigation canal that passes through village and is utilized
by livestock especially buffaloes and may contribute towards parasitic burden
through drinking water. Animals are fed
with the mixture of chopped green fodder and pelleted
cattle feed during late mornings and only greens during evenings. The food is
provided collectively to the animals in cemented mangers and is calculated at
15kg of green fodder and 1.0kg concentrate per day per cheetal.
Methods
Anthelmintic trial: The
study included assessing parasitic load in animals prior to treatment,
acclimatization of animals to individual feeding, anthelmintic
treatment and assessment of parasitic load post treatment as referred by Shahardar (1995). The parasitic load was quantified in
terms of eggs per gram (EPG) of faeces employing
Modified Mc Master Technique (Coles 1986) to evaluate control measures against
gastrointestinal helminths. A possible explanation to this may be
supported by the findings of Schultz et al. (1993) who reported that previous
contamination of pastures may be responsible for maintaining adequate reservoir
of gastrointestinal nematodes in the enclosure that permits relatively rapid
re-infection. Jansen (1985) suggested
that effects of anthelmintic treatment are short
lived unless pasture contamination is reduced.
The procedure followed and the results achieved are discussed here.
Animal
habituation/acclimatization and drug administration: The animals were
habituated to feed in earthern pots having mouth
diameter of 12.5cm and a depth of 15cm for a period of 10 days. To avoid single/dominant animal feeding from
number of pots, they were placed at 1.5m distance in two parallel rows in a zig zag fashion. All the containers were filled at one go
before allowing the animals access to feed.
The number of pots placed were equal to the
number of cheetal in the enclosure. The approximate weight of
animal for dose calculation was estimated to be 60kg irrespective of sex and
age. To ensure that all the animals get
required quantum of drug, the weight estimation was on the higher side. Though drug dose was higher for does and
fawn, this was used, as fenbendazole is reported to
have wide safety margin (Roberson 1982; Bliss 2007).
A
day prior to anthelmintic treatment the animals were
fed only green fodder. The required
measure of drug was mixed with limited quantity of grounded pelleted
feed and jaggery and delivered in individual
containers to the animal. Fenbendazole (Panacur® VET, Intervet, Pune, India) at 7.5mg/kg was provided per animal and
repeated after 21 days. Feeding time was
matched with daily feeding schedule. Majority of animals approached the pots
together and consumed the drug-concentrate mixture fast. Once the drug was consumed, the animals were
provided full concentrate ration along with green fodder. More than 90% of the
total population consumed feed mixed with the drugs.
Results
Pre treatment
parasitic load: Pre
treatment faecal parasitic load was analyzed by
sedimentation and floatation method (Coles 1986) and found to be 87.5%
(21/24). The species wise parasite
distribution included 43.80% Strongyles sp.,
20.66% Strongyloides sp., 9.09% each of Moniezia sp., Toxocara
sp. and Trichuris sp. Additionally 8.26% of the samples revealed Coccidia oocyst. The EPG value prior to the treatment was 177±20.597.
Post treatment
parasitic load: The
post treatment parasitic load showed significant reduction for all the
parasitic species by day 11 with the overall EPG of faeces
of 1.25±0.9. Trichuris sp. however was
eliminated by day 7. Mild infection
however existed on day 19 post treatment (0.41±0.41) and may be attributed to
re-exposure to infective larvae or the eggs. Parasitic ova could not be
detected on day 21. Following second
treatment on day 22, there was slight increase in the EPG (0.41±0.41) on
day 26 albeit at low levels. This may
probably be attributed to parasite buildup within the enclosure and repeated
exposure and infection.
Discussion
The observed
parasitic prevalence of 87.5% in untreated animals is in consonance to the
findings of Kashid et al. (2003) and Varadharajan & Pythal (1999)
who reported similar high parasitic prevalence of 96.31% and 76% respectively
among ungulates in captivity and attributed it to high animal densities,
repeated exposure to infective agent and consequently heavy contamination of
enclosures. Fenbendazole
was efficacious in reducing gastrointestinal burden in captive Cheeetal as reflected by faecal
EPG levels which dropped from 177±20.597 during pre treatment to 1.25±0.9,
0.41±0.41 on day 11 and 19 respectively post treatment. This is in consonance with Schultz et al.
(1993) who reported that previous contamination of pastures may be responsible
for maintaining adequate reservoir of gastrointestinal nematodes in the
enclosure that permit relatively rapid re-infection. Jansen (1985) suggested that effects of anthelmintic treatment are short lived unless pasture
contamination is reduced. The reduction
in parasitic load post treatment is in consonance to the findings of Shahardar et al. (1995) who, however, reported complete
elimination of parasites by eighth day post fenbendazole
treatment in Kashmiri stag.
Conclusion
It can be
concluded that the drug delivery regimen adopted in the present study is
efficacious without causing handling stress to the animals while ensuring that
all animals receive equal dosage. The
method can be used for selective administration of drugs for treating targeted
individuals’ as it is much better than the current practice of mixing
medication in feed and then allowing the whole group to feed which results in
both healthy and sick individuals receiving medication.
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