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Short Course

Faecal Worm Egg Counting

Enrolment Form Courses Faecal Worm Egg Counting

Course Details

Learn how to protect your stock from worms while increasing your profit margin.

  • Course Information

    This course is designed for farmers to conduct worm egg counts on their own livestock. 

    Learn how to protect your stock while increasing your profit margin through:

    • Use worm egg counts to detect worm infestations early
    • Do your own worm egg counts and interpret the results
    • Use tests to determine which drenches are effective on farm
    • Use WormBoss to help with your decision making

     This course is not designed to qualify participants to advise others commercially. 

    Please see scheduled course dates and complete an expression of interest below : 

  • Complete Expression of Interest Here
    Phone   Email
    Online group
    Online Group - 15 December - with Dave Worsley
    Online Group - - with Waitlist for a future course date TBA
    Face to Face
    Face to Face - Waitlist for a future loaction - - with Dave Worlsey
    Face to Face Other - suggest a location in the comments box
  • Units

    AHCWRK301 Collect Samples for a rural production or horticulture monitoring program

    AHCAGB302 Keep production records for a primary production business (completed online for funded students)

  • Cost

    Course cost (both online and face to face format)

    Participants in NSW may be eligible to have the course fee fully subsidised by the NSW Government, contact us for details.

    $325pp (GST exempt) course

    Specialised equipment is required, please see the equipment section.

  • Delivery

    Interactive online workshop (8:45am-4:00pm AEST with an hour lunch break): 

    • Friday 15th December with Dave Worsley

    Online courses are run in our virtual classroom where you work with a trainer and other participants. You will be able to see a presentation on your computer screen, hear the trainer and other group members, and ask questions or make comments. One of our previous participants described it as being like "two way radio with pictures" but it also has a whiteboard, chat function and many other tools useful for training.

    Face-to-face workshops can be organised if there is a group of at least 10 people in the one area. Contact us to organise.

  • Benefits

    Key Benefits

    • This course will assist you in being able to identify and treat worm infestations in your livestock.
    • Flexible
    • Everyone with an internet connection has equal access to training
    • Training is delivered to you - wherever you have internet access
    • No travel time or travel costs
    • Access to the best trainers who are farmers themselves, not just trainers who can visit your district
    • Work in groups from a wide geographic area
    • Training can continue even if you are travelling or cut off by floods or other natural disasters
  • Pathways

    This unit forms part of the AHC30116 Certificate III in Agriculture.

  • Equipment Required

    Equipment Required:

    • a microscope: 
      • You will need 40X magnification (for Whitlock slides) and 100X (for McMaster slides).  Most basic microscopes have this capacity although optics improve with cost.

      The most important thing is to have a mechanical stage for moving a counting chamber around as you need to be able to see the entire slide in the field of view, some stages on smaller microscopes are not big enough to give you the movement required.

       Some microscope options

         
    • a McMaster or Whitlock egg counting slide 
    • Faecal samples for testing - Everyone will require at least 10 fresh samples of your choice of livestock manure for the day. Sheep, goats and horses are good because they normally have higher egg counts than cattle. You can also do cattle. Try to target mobs which you suspect have worms as we need samples containing eggs for learning.

    You will need to order your equipment through the supplied contacts and allow 2 - 4 weeks for it to arrive.

    For Face to Face workshops we will provide equipment for the duration of the course, however where possible we recommend you bring your own microscope and slide so our trainer can ensure you are correctly set up and ready to do the counts on your own after the course.

    Online Workshops only RuralBiz Training will provide you with:

    • a FWEC kit of simple, easily sourced, relatively low cost items, that can be used to conduct effective worm egg counts
      •   
    • USB Eye Piece - you need to supply us with your credit card details when applying which may be liable for a charge of $380 if the USB eye piece is not returned to RuralBiz Training in good working order within 14 days of the online workshop.
    • Salt to make a saline solution - You will need to make up 1.5 litres of saturated salt solution before the day of the online workshop. To do this boil 1.5 litres of water and stir in salt until no more will dissolve (roughly 250g per L). Allow to cool and put into a plastic bottle suitably labelled.

    Please note prices are correct at August 2022.