Day 3: Learning How to Count Parasite Eggs

Today was a little more laid back than the last two because I was preparing for my departure tomorrow. In addition to packing, I learned one of two ways to count eggs in a fecal sample, which is how we will be doing it in North Carolina.

The technique we will be using to count eggs is called the McMaster Egg Counting Technique. The purpose is to find the EPG, or eggs per gram of feces. First, you weigh out two grams of the fecal sample. Second, you pass the feces through a sieve into a dish containing 60 ml of ZnSO4 or saturated salt solution, which you then pour into a flask and mix well so that the eggs don't prematurely float to the top. After that, you use a pipette to transfer the solution into one of the chambers of the McMaster slide, then repeat the process to fill the second chamber. After 30 seconds, you examine the number of eggs under a microscope that floated to the top of the chambers, multiply that number by 100, and there you have your EPG!

Learning this skill will definitely help me achieve my first goal; it is undoubtably a science-based research skill that is involved in many different scientific professions. Believe it or not, it is also something that I can put into use at home if I get the equipment! I have a horse and goat that both graze and are at risk for picking up parasites, so attaining this skill could be very beneficial in maintaining my own animals' health. This summer we lost one of our baby goats (Elsa) due to Bloodworms, which I blogged about yesterday. Her death was due to a resistance in the worm, as it had learned how to mutate and ignore the effects of the dewormers that we had given her. Deworming medications are really cheap and as a result are often given on a frequent schedule (which is what we had started to do). However, deworming without having a knowledge of which parasites are an issue causes the problem of mutations and superbugs, which is exactly what happened with the bloodworms in Elsa's body. Therefore, having the ability to read fecal samples would be extremely helpful, as it would allow me to have an understanding of which parasites are an issue and need to be treated without having the expense of vet.

I'm so excited to travel to North Carolina tomorrow and finally meet my mentor Paul and his family with whom I will be staying! Time for the real fun to begin...