Sensitivity and specificity of the FAMACHA© system in Suffolk sheep and crossbred Boer goats

Sheep and goats are the species of farm animal with the highest growth rate in Paraná State. The main problems facing Paraná State flocks are gastrointestinal parasites and anthelmintic resistance. One of the newest resources used to slow down the development of anthelmintic resistance is the FAMACHA© system, a selective method useful for controlling gastrointestinal verminosis in small ruminants. The purpose of the present research was to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the FAMACHA© system in sheep and goats and to compare the results for both species. The conjunctivae of 83 Suffolk ewes and 60 adult crossbred Boer does were evaluated by the same trained person using the FAMACHA© system. The packed cell value (PCV) served as the gold standard for clinical FAMACHA© evaluation. To calculate the sensitivity and specificity of the FAMACHA© system, different criteria were adopted in turn: animals classified as FAMACHA© (F©) 4 and 5, or 3, 4 and 5, were considered to be anemic (positive test), and animals classified as F©1, 2 and 3, or 1 and 2 were considered to be non-anemic (negative test). Three standard values of PCV, namely ≤19%, ≤18% or ≤15%, were used to confirm anemia. At all cut-off levels, the sensitivity increased if F©3 animals were included as being anemic. However, changes in levels of sensitivity were associated with reciprocal changes in specificity. The sensitivity was higher for sheep than for goats, excepting when the criteria included PCV ≤ 18 and F©3, F©4 and F©5 were considered positive. In contrast, the specificity was always lower in sheep for any criteria adopted. Other than in goats, using the ≤15 cut-off level for sheep, it is possible to opt not to drench the animals that were shown to be F©3 because the sensitivity is still high, indicating that few animals that should have been drenched were overlooked. In goats, in contrast, the low sensitivity at all cut-off levels made it too risky to leave F©3 animals undrenched. Even though the number of correct treatments for goats was always higher than that for sheep, the opposite was true for the kappa index for all the criteria tested. Therefore, the FAMACHA© system is suitable for the identification of anemic animals of both species. It is necessary that all small ruminants classified as FAMACHA© level 3 are also treated to increase the sensitivity of the method.