Cost-benefit ratio of anthelmintic treatment and its comparative efficacy in commercial dairy farms

Muhammad Rashid; Naveed Zahra; Amna Chudhary; Tauseef Ur Rehman; Muhammad Tahir Aleem; Abdulaziz Alouffi; Aymen Mohammed; Muhammad Imran Rashid; Muhammad Ehsan; Muhammad Irfan Malik; Ghulam Hussain Dilber; Amir Bakhsh; Mashal M Almutairi

doi:10.3389/fvets.2022.1047497

Cost-benefit ratio of anthelmintic treatment and its comparative efficacy in commercial dairy farms

Front Vet Sci. 2022 Nov 16:9:1047497. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2022.1047497. eCollection 2022.

Affiliations

¹ Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
² Department of Livestock Management, Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
³ College of Life Sciences, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an, China.
⁴ MOE Joint International Research Laboratory of Animal Health and Food Safety, College of Veterinary Medicine, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Division of Molecular Therapeutics and Formulation, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
⁷ Department of Parasitology, University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Lahore, Pakistan.
⁸ Department of Theriogenology, Faculty of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
⁹ Livestock and Dairy Development Department, Government of Punjab, Punjab, Pakistan.
¹⁰ Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

Intestinal parasitic infection is one of the major challenges in obtaining optimal production and maintaining the health and welfare of all animals including cattle and buffaloes. Anti-parasitic treatments appear to be a reliable countermeasure. However, the effectiveness and selection of suitable anthelmintics require situational assessments in a given locality. In the current study, the efficacy and impact of benzimidazole (albendazole) were assessed in a total of 400 (100 each) on the performance of buffaloes, buffalo-heifer, cattle, and cattle-heifers at two commercial dairy farms in the Province of Punjab, Pakistan. Additionally, the cost-benefit ratio was calculated by assessing the inputs (medication, feed, and labor cost) and outputs (milk and weight gain). The qualitative and quantitative examination of helminth eggs in each type of animal indicated a prevalence of 73.3, 78.3, 76.6, and 85.0% in cattle, cattle-heifers, buffaloes, and buffaloes-heifers, respectively. Specifically, a highest rate (10.0-13.3%) of Haemonchus sp. infection was only observed in cattle and heifers, while Fasciola sp. infections (10.0-11.6%) were the most often found species in buffaloes and heifers. The highest anthelmintic impacts (egg per gram of feces, p < 0.001) were observed on day 14 post-medication. Until 60 days of post-anthelmintic treatment, an average increase of 0.8 and 0.7 L in milk production per day in cattle and buffaloes, respectively while a total of 11.45 and 9.45 kg body weight were noticed in cattle-heifer and buffaloes-heifer, respectively. Cumulative cost-benefit analysis indicated a positive correlation between treated and non-treated animals. These findings reiterate the importance of anthelmintic drugs in reducing the impacts of parasites on the productivity, health, and well-being of an animal under high infection challenges.

Keywords: anthelmintic; buffaloes; cattle; cost-benefit ratio; efficacy; heifers.