Seasonal prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites of goats in North -East Himalayan region of Sikkim, India

The present study was conducted to determine the reasonality of gastro intestinal parasitism in goats in a selected area in Sikkim. Of the total 1,921 faecal samples examined 1,258 (65.49%) were positive for different gastrointestinal parasitic infections with eggs per gram of faeces (EPG) in the range of 100-4,800. The most prevalent gastrointestinal helminth parasite eggs detected were strongyles (63.51%), Eimeria (54.51%), Strongyloides (34.25%), Moniezia (32.12%), Nematodirus (22.33%), Trichuris (11.71%), Dicrocoelium spp. (10.20%) and amphistome (8.95%) in decreasing order. The prevalence of gastrointestinal parasitic infection was high in August (82.22%) and low in January (44.08%). The seasonal distribution of gastrointestinal parasitism indicated higher percentage of infection during summer (75.29%) followed by autumn (74.54%) and spring (64.23%). The infection rate was significantly lower in winter (51.33%).