Maine Farmcast

On this episode of the Maine Farmcast, Dr. Glenda Pereira, Assistant Extension Professor and State Dairy Specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, has a conversation with Dr. Rachel White about meningeal worms in small ruminants. Dr. Rachel White is an Assistant Extension Professor, Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Educator Hancock and Washington Counties at UMaine Extension. White's extension program seeks to develop and conduct educational outreach and applied research with emphasis on small ruminants and equine.
In complying with the letter and spirit of applicable laws and pursuing its own goals of diversity, the University of Maine System does not discriminate on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, gender, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, national origin, citizenship status, familial status, ancestry, age, disability physical or mental, genetic information, or veterans or military status in employment, education, and all other programs and activities.  The University provides reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities upon request. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding non-discrimination policies: Director of Equal Opportunity, 5713 Chadbourne Hall, Room 412, University of Maine, Orono, ME  04469-5713, 207.581.1226, TTY 711 (Maine Relay System).

Creators & Guests

Host
Colt Knight
Colt grew up in a coal mining family in West Virginia where they also operated a small family farm and show horse stable. During academic breaks and between schools, he worked in strip mines across the country. Colt earned his B.S. in Animal Science at the University of Kentucky, M.S. in Animal Science at Angelo State University, and his Ph.D. in Animal Science at the University of Arizona in 2006, 2012, and 2016, respectively. In the fall of 2016, he worked on a postdoc with Dr. Derek Bailey at New Mexico State University. Since 2017, Colt W. Knight works as an Assistant Professor of Extension for the University of Maine where he serves as the State Livestock Specialist. He teaches Introduction to Animal Science (AVS 145) and runs the Maine Grazing Behavior Lab. The core focus of the Grazing Behavior lab revolves around designing and manufacturing livestock tracking collars, engaging in applied grazing behavior research, and assisting other researchers with technology to interpret animal behavior. Dr. Knight’s research is broadly focused on selecting animals uniquely adapted to landscapes and promoting sustainable agriculture. Colt is the current chair for the Society of Range Management Livestock Foraging Behavior Committee, as well as, the North East Region Chair for the National Association of County Agricultural Agent’s Teaching and Educational Technology Committee. He also serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Ecological Processes. Colt is actively engaged in outreach and has delivered over 150 seminars on livestock production since starting his career at the University of Maine.
Host
Glenda Pereira
As the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Dairy Specialist, Dr. Pereira conducts applied research and develops educational programs for dairy and livestock producers across the state of Maine and New England. While the Holstein breed is near and dear to her heart, Dr. Pereira admires the Normande breed and her favorite dairy products are sour cream and ice cream.
Host
Rachel White
Rachel is a Sustainable Agriculture and Livestock Educator based out of Hancock county. Her objectives include education, research, and programming about agriculture in Washington and Hancock counties and with small ruminants and poultry across the state. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Maine researching risk of parasite transmission from wildlife to small ruminants and risk reduction methods, including pastured poultry. Her social science work looks at farmer and veterinarian knowledge, attitude, and practice for small ruminant health management and the challenges they encounter with this topic. Rachel is also involved with the University’s One Health and the Environment NRT program. She is plans to include a One Health framework into her programming to address human-animal-environmental health challenges in Maine’s agricultural community. On her farm, Rachel has Finn sheep, laying chickens, seasonal broilers, pigeons, horses, and various fruits.

What is Maine Farmcast?

The Maine Farmcast features weekly conversations with experts from across the country sharing insights and advice for both new and seasoned farmers running operations of any size. Hosted by three livestock specialists from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, the show brings you world-class expertise paired with practical advice about how to apply cutting-edge research to improve the efficiency and sustainability of your farming operation.

Glenda Pereira:

Welcome to the Maine Farmcast. This is your host, Dr. Glenda Pereira, an extension assistant professor within University of Maine Cooperative Extension and an assistant professor within the School of Food and Agriculture at the University of Maine. On today's episode, we have, one of our coworkers here at UMaine Extension, Dr. Rachel White. Dr. Rachel White, you actually are a graduate of the Ph.D. program here at the University of Maine, and your expertise is in small ruminants as well as in some companion small equine as well. And I'm really excited about the episode today because we've had a lot of requests for small ruminant topics, so we're gonna be covering that today.

Glenda Pereira:

Would you please introduce yourself to our listeners since you are a new guest?

Rachel White:

Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Like Glenda mentioned, I am Dr. Rachel White. I am a recent graduate of UMaine, and I focus most of my work on, the meningeal worm system and, risk reduction, stakeholder knowledge, attitudes, and practices around small ruminant parasite management.

Rachel White:

I'm currently what is my title? It's very long. An assistant extension professor. I am also a sustainable agriculture educator in the Downeast region. So that's Washington and Hancock County.

Rachel White:

And then statewide, I'm a livestock educator covering small rodents, equine, and poultry.

Glenda Pereira:

Yes. Long title. Lots of responsibilities. But like you mentioned, you're statewide and you have some responsibilities, and you you support the Downeast area of Maine where there's quite a bit of small ruminants. Is that right?

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. I'm still learning the farming lay

Rachel White:

of the land in that area. I'm not from Downeast, but, getting more familiar with it. Yeah. There seems to be quite a few, diversified, agricultural practices and a lot of places have small ruminants. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Awesome. So tell us about your background. So recent grad of UMaine.

Rachel White:

Yeah. It's funny. I actually come from like an environmental and water quality background. And at the same hand, for many, many years ran a farm myself. So I ran equestrian business teaching horseback riding lessons, and summer camps, all that.

Rachel White:

And then grew that into, you know, adding sheep and goats for the campers. And I wanted to pursue a higher educational degree. I was teaching high school science, for 3 years and I just had a burning itch to, to do more and serve the wider public more. So I found I actually started out, in the master's program for animal and vet science here at the university. And a year in, I said, I actually want to go all the way.

Rachel White:

I want to do more. So I completely skipped the master's part. I have a, bachelor's of science from Unity College and then I actually, in my 1st year here at UMaine, switched to the environmental and ecology sciences, so I could actually get the Ph.D. Because animal and that science doesn't have a Ph.D. program, unfortunately.

Glenda Pereira:

Yep. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

So you've got lots of experience, lots of expertise,

Rachel White:

and you're a farmer yourself? Yeah. So right now I am, pursuing my lifelong dream of breeding Norwegian Fjord horses. For many years, my husband and I raised sheep for, like, commercially for, you know, the public, but also for our family use, for meat, and for fiber production. We have since switched gears after moving to our new property.

Rachel White:

So I actually just sold the last of my rams, which is kind of bittersweet. And now I have a few goats. So we're having some fun with goats and I'm hoping to use them for educational programs, landscaping, just because our property needs an overhaul. Right.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

Well, you have lots to share with folks. So, anything you wanna add about your background? So are you a Mainer? Are you from away?

Rachel White:

Oh, no. No. I am a Mainer, a true Mainer. My husband's from away. He's from Massachusetts, but we don't need to talk about him.

Glenda Pereira:

Well, technically, Maine used to be part of Massachusetts, so he gets

Rachel White:

Oh. A bypass. Right? I guess. No.

Rachel White:

He'll never he'll never be a Mainer. But no, he's awesome. Yeah. So I grew up in, the Belgrade Lakes region. That's where I had a farm.

Rachel White:

So it was a family farm and I managed it for many years and lived on the farm. And it really was a living laboratory. It helped pay my way through undergrad, which was awesome. But yeah, I learned some lessons along the way, and I'm, I'm so glad that I was able to, you know, come out with a Ph.D. and really sort of broaden the scope of my knowledge. I was in the one health and the environment NRT program.

Rachel White:

And for folks listening, NRT is like an acronym within an acronym. It's the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship. So, it was like a side curriculum that focused on like human health, animal health, environmental health, and policy, and how it all connects. Because in the real world, everything, everything connects. So it was a great, you know, bridge of my environmental background, my animal health background, and, you know, it's just a great, you know, cross, I don't know.

Rachel White:

Yeah. Subjects of just everything of my interest. And, yeah, I'm still sort of like on that path of like, I want to stay broad. I don't want to be so, so focused in one area. There's benefits to that, of course, but, you know, a lot of farmers that I talk to, they are begging for folks to kind of think of the holistic system, and that's where I'm at.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Absolutely. Everything is intertwined. So, you know, we have to talk about we should talk about in past forage or silage quality. Well, that starts with the soil, which a lot of folks, you know, end product.

Glenda Pereira:

But what are we putting into the soil? Because that's gonna impact our forage, which then is gonna impact our production of our animals. So, yes, in a similar sense, there is a one health, and it's all intertwined. Mhmm. And we are gonna be talking about health today, specifically about small ruminants, and it ties back to your PhD working with the meningeal worm.

Glenda Pereira:

So you've been getting maybe some client questions about it. Oh, yeah. Do you wanna sort of start at the top and tell us a little bit more about Yeah. These fun little worms? I I guess I take that back.

Glenda Pereira:

They're not fun.

Rachel White:

The I think they're fun, but I view them in a totally different way. So part of I'll start with my research and then I'll go into like what I'm seeing with the public right now. So I, in my research, I went to, 6 different farms across the state, small ruminant farms, and randomly sampled throughout 2 pastures on each farm just to see like where are there potential hot spots, what are the ecological factors that tie into, you know, risk of meningeal worm. And every farm is different and, you know, it ranged from like 1% to about like 4% of snails that were infected, which is kind of what the literature is suggesting that at least with brain worm and moose, it's around 4%. And this sounds low, but when you have a pasture that has like 100 of 1000 to millions of snails, like to the point where you're like walking across a field and you're like crunch, crunch, crunch.

Rachel White:

Those are the systems that seem to have the higher risk. And those are the systems where animals are dying. 2 of my farms, they are like top, top quality, pasture management. They're, it's beautiful. It's like what we're trying to, like, push for, like, regenerative grazing and soil health.

Rachel White:

It's wonderful. Unfortunately, with healthy soils, you have snails. And that's, it's a beautiful thing because snails are engineers of soil health. It's wonderful, but, yeah, sometimes your small remnants get meningeal worm and die, because there's deer everywhere. Right.

Rachel White:

Of course, deer is part of the system. So, yeah, I focus a lot of my time on like what are the risk factors. And like I said, it's just super, super healthy fields, wet areas, having deer on your pasture at any time of year. So even if you don't see them in the summer if they're accessing your pasture in the winter their larva can freeze over winter and then snails consume them in the spring it's it's a mess. But, I've I've had my own lambs come down with meningeal worm and I have treated them successfully, but they're still they've, like, were still, like, symptomatic after, like, still, like, an uneven gait.

Rachel White:

But, yeah, it it's a problem this time of year. So, I don't know if you want me to kind of like date this podcast, but

Glenda Pereira:

right now Yeah. Let's date it. Yeah.

Rachel White:

This is October that we're recording this. So it's around, probably late August into maybe early December where we start seeing the majority of the symptoms occur. Because what happens is the animals are consuming the infected snail that has the larva in it probably around May or June. And then it's usually around 3 months after that they become symptomatic. So this time of year we're seeing a lot of cases.

Rachel White:

Sheep, goats. I was just at a farm with reindeer that yeah. So it's, I'm getting a lot of client inquiries about, you know, what is this? How do I manage it? And that is one of the research areas that I focused on is how do we actually, prevent it?

Rachel White:

Because that's really it's the age old, you know, prevention is the best cure. Right. Right. That's meningealworm to a T because there is no diagnostic for it. It it doesn't reach adulthood within the the aberrant host or the dead end host, which is what our sheep and goats and llamas are.

Rachel White:

So it won't shed, eggs. So we can't do a fecal flow. There's no blood tests for it. Even, gross necropsy, you you can't really see it. They're just way too small.

Rachel White:

So prevention is huge. What I did, I studied a snail burdened field for 2 years. I, randomly, well, not so random, but I mowed patches. This was like a 2 acre field and I mowed patches. I left some patches as a control, so they didn't get mowed in 2 years.

Rachel White:

I left some patches mowed the 1st year and let regrowth happen the 2nd year just to see what would happen to this the snail and slug populations. Yeah. What I found was mowing 2 years in a row, it does what you expect. It dries out the soil. There's no micro habitat for these gastropods to live in.

Rachel White:

The areas that were allowed to regrow, abruptly repopulated. The snails repopulated. And really what my observations I found were those critters were immigrating from the control areas. So they move. They do move, especially when it's like wet out or there's dew on the grass.

Rachel White:

That's when they're really mobile. So mowing, mowing helps for sure. If anyone listening is like needing to really get ahead of their their snail population. So mowing like 2 years in a row, which isn't ideal, you know, when you're trying to save money, like, on hay, or you're really trying to, like, better your your grass, in your pastures. Another management technique is pastured poultry.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Yeah. So let's pause there though because mowing so let's talk a little bit more about that. Yes. So, basically, what you're seeing that could be a potential management strategy is to mow after they've grazed.

Glenda Pereira:

Is that right?

Rachel White:

Or So

Glenda Pereira:

because how do we implement that? Because mowing can be beneficial for the pasture. Right? Critters leave a lot of things behind that they don't want. And so if you want to have that second grazing where they're gonna have access to all of the same areas in the pasture, mowing can be a way to help.

Glenda Pereira:

There's a couple of farmers in Maine that I've spoken to that they mow after every grazing

Rachel White:

Mhmm.

Glenda Pereira:

To just have that, like, even field that just has better and that system really works well for them. So tell me a little bit more about what you recommend.

Rachel White:

So yeah. And I'm thinking of 2, like, one of the recommendations for, like, the haemonchus catortus or the barberpole worm, management is to, like, introduce animals to, like, a hay field. Like a field that's recently been hayed, you know, maybe it has, like, some growth left. That way, you know, everything has a chance to dry it up and died. And this essentially is the same thing.

Rachel White:

So, if you were to, you know, imagine a pasture, you know, in beautiful lush tall grass, right, covered in snails, and it's it's primarily snails where I saw this, very few slugs. If you were to graze those animals and these snails are the, you know, the top of the grass blades, the animals are munch, munch, munch, munch, they're like croutons, they're just like tasty, you're not reducing risk. You're just like here. And then sure you can mow it after, which is, like you mentioned, like the norm, but you still you introduced your animals. So this is where it's like it's the catch 22 of, well, do I mow the field?

Rachel White:

You know, maybe I just have one bad field that I just need to keep my animals off of for a year or 2. Keep routinely keep it mowed or I I don't love this, overgraze it. Yeah. It it's tough.

Glenda Pereira:

But those but those are management opportunities. So I get it. You don't get to utilize that field, but we have to do that sometimes for pasture renovation Right. Where, you know, we maybe put an annual in Mhmm. Put something permanent the next year, but we're having to sacrifice an area to improve that pasture overall.

Rachel White:

Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

So it seems like your your recommendation and what the literature indicates is to keep animals off of that area, because it's gonna lead to survivability down the line.

Rachel White:

Mhmm.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that that was awesome. Thank you for that.

Glenda Pereira:

Thank you for clarifying that. So I cut you off. You were saying the second management strategy was? Yeah. So the other piece that I investigated was pastured poultry.

Rachel White:

I this was with around, I'm gonna say around 1 they some ended up perishing due to predation. Like, I'm around 180 laying hems. And they were moved they were in like a 25,000 square foot rotation with a movable coop. They got moved every 3 to 4 days. They were on, like, snail burden pastures.

Rachel White:

I did a before and after comparison, and I did find that the birds did do a great job at, reducing the snail population. I was going to look at, broilers, but I it was a lot and I they didn't move too much. So I'm like, okay. Maybe maybe like a successful like foraging breed like Freedom Rangers. They might be a little bit more successful, but I did find that the Rhode Island Reds were pretty successful.

Rachel White:

More motivated. Yeah. They

Glenda Pereira:

are. More aggressive.

Rachel White:

They're hungry. Also ducks. Like, ducks do a really good job. That's what I use on my farm. So I have a couple areas where I'm like, oh, there's a lot of smiles here.

Rachel White:

So I'll I'll put my ducks in before I put my sheep in. Of course, I'm always birds are gross, so I'm always worried about, like, bacteria or, like, salmonella. You know, I don't I don't want my other animals getting it or anything. So, like, I'll, I'll introduce my ducks, to a, to a spot and then I'll give it like 2 weeks for UV to kill everything. Then I'll introduce my small ruminants.

Rachel White:

But, yeah, small, I mean, pasture poultry is one of the great ways to I know a lot of dairy farmers don't just like what I said with salmonella, a lot of dairy farmers might not consider poultry, but they're they work. They do work. So, you know, maybe like a combined mowing and birds, you know, if you have like a really high population snail area, do both. Also getting rid of the micro habitats like burdock, nettle, a lot of dandelions. So these tap rooted plants seem to sustain the gastropod populations even in, like, drought conditions.

Rachel White:

So totally getting rid of those micro, climates for those animals, that will help, you know, reduce those populations too. But I'm a nature lover. Like I said in the top here, you know, I'm always thinking of the holistic system and it's like snails are great for soil health. Like, do we actually want to kill all of them? Well, I mean, what's what's the value of your animals?

Rachel White:

Like, are you losing animals? Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

And is that some of the inquiries you've been getting from from producers and clients? What's what's been coming in? So mostly,

Rachel White:

I would say the majority of inquiries have to do with parasites in general. And a lot of that is with the barberpole worm. Some of that is with meningeal worm, and some of the management is quite similar. Yeah. I think the barberpole worm issue, it's, it's an issue.

Rachel White:

And people, I don't know if it's they don't know, you know, some of the the techniques to manage it. Yeah. But, you know, like we're we're dealing with deworming resistance in the worms. That's a huge, huge issue. We're dealing with deaths and, like, severe anemia.

Rachel White:

Yeah. I would say, like, barberpole worm is number one Yep. Problem that I'm I'm seeing a lot right now in in helping people, you know, figure out that that management plan. Mhmm.

Glenda Pereira:

I mean, we will have you back certainly to talk about the Barbara Pearlworm, but today's focus was obviously on the work you did for your PhD. Yeah. And obviously, because you're getting a lot of client questions for it. So you mentioned a couple of really great things. So for management of parasites overall, and this is specific to meningeal worms, but you found that mowing for 2 years in a row really helps reduce the snail population.

Rachel White:

Mhmm.

Glenda Pereira:

And then, obviously, utilizing birds. Birds are great at managing a lot of pests. Mhmm. So they can be effective if, managed properly. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

Yeah. Anything you wanna add to the conversation that we had today?

Rachel White:

Gosh. I feel like I could go on forever.

Glenda Pereira:

I won't allow that. I know. I know. I'm just kidding.

Rachel White:

Yeah. I don't know. I think, you know, in in the the scope of my research, it's that's a good place to end. I did have one of my chapters that did ask the participating farmers and, a handful of clinical veterinarians kind of like what their knowledge and practices are, like around parasites in general in the small ruminant, system. And it's, it's kind of what you would expect.

Rachel White:

So, you know, small ruminant farmers in Maine right now, they're struggling to maintain veterinary client patient relationships. And that's not totally their fault. It's it's a nationwide problem that we are we have a vet shortage. Yeah. A lot of the veterinarians in Maine are, you know, or the large animal veterinarians are like dairy focused or equine focused, and they just don't have the capacity to go out on farms.

Rachel White:

And so, we're seeing, you know, these firestorms on the farms where people are getting their information online, and they're self treating and self diagnosing, and the animals getting sicker or dying. And then that's when a vet comes in and it's just yeah. Yeah. It's complicated, but you're a resource. Yeah.

Rachel White:

So I'm so glad I'm in my position because I think it it was timely when when I got hired and I've certainly been busy Supporting

Glenda Pereira:

all these folks. Yeah. Mhmm. Awesome. Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

And with that, thank you so much for your insight today, Rachel. It was great to have you on the podcast, and we look forward to having you many more times

Rachel White:

Yeah.

Glenda Pereira:

To talk about small ruminants and equine. So with that, thank you so much, for coming on to the Maine Farmcast. We loved having you.

Rachel White:

Awesome. Thank you for having me. This was fun.

Glenda Pereira:

And for our listeners, if you have questions, comments, feedback for us, be sure to email us at extension.farmcast@maine.edu. We also are always open to, topic suggestions to cover on the podcast, so feel free to share those as well.