No abstract

An investigation into ectoparasites of sheep and goats was carried out in Duhok province North West region of Iraq, during six months of a year, from January to June 2010. One thousand and two hundred forty eight (1248) sheep and 954 goats in 110 flocks from 80 villages were examined. Among them overall animals (66.89%) were infested with one or more species of ectoparasites. Of 720 (57.7%) and of 753 (78.9%) sheep and goats, respectively were infested. Five different types of ectoparasites, ticks (46.7%, 34.9%), lice (3.8%, 33.8%), mites (7.1%, 0.1%), fleas (2.8%, 7.75%) and ked (1.2%, 4.5%) were identified sheep and goats, respectively. Five species of hard ticks (Ixodidae) were identified in both sheep and goats, namely Hyalomma anatolicum anatolicun (48.37%, 13.5%), H. marginatum (18.01%, 8.1%), Rhipicephalus sanguineous (21.09%, 39.93%), R. turanicus (16.8%, 49.54%) and Haemaphysalis ssp. (2.5%, 0.9%). Two species of lice were infested each one of animal these namely, Damalinia Ovis (75%) and Linognathus stenopsis (33.3%) on sheep, and D. caprae (80.74%) and L.stenopsis (19.2%) on goats. Sheep were highly infested with two species of mites, Sarcoptes scabiei (25.84%) and Psoroptes Ovis (74.15%) than the goats, which one goat was found (0.1%) infested with S. scabiei. Three species of fleas were found infested both sheep and goats. Out of 106 collected fleas (47.2%, 43.4%, 9.4%) were Ctenocephalides felis felis, Pulex irritans and Xenopsylla cheopis, respectively. However, the only one species of Ked Melophagus ovinus were infested (1.2%) of sheep and (4.5%) of goats.

Background: Quercus infectoria is a kind of forest tree widely used for livestock feeding within the northern parts of Iraq with little was known about the Quercus infectoria toxicity mainly in pregnant animals. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the potential effect of Quercus infectoria acorn on the pregnant albino rats. Methods: This study was conducted on the Wistar pregnant rats, using aqueous extract of the acorn at doses of 2 grams/ rat for a period of 10 days. The effect of the quercus acorn on the animal behavior, pregnancy hematobiochemical parameters was investigated compared to the control groups. Result: Neither mortality, nor significant changes in animals’ behavior were detected in treated rats; whereas, abortion and early parturition with lower weight of the pups were observed in treated pregnant rats. Significant increases in red blood cells, packed cell volume, hemoglobin concentration, means corpuscular volume and means corpuscular hemoglobin and levels of neutrophils and eosinophil were reported in treated rats compared to the control groups. Besides, blood urea nitrogen and aspartate aminotransferase were significantly increased in the treated group. Study results suggest that the aqueous extract of Quercus infectoria acorn has potential toxic effects on pregnancy.