Worm Egg Count

Requirements
	McMaster slide – this provides a simple counting chamber
	Make flotation solution		Super saturated sugar solution:
			200 ml water
			Heat to boiling
			Add sugar, until no more will dissolve
			Pour off the sugar solution into a glass container. This will keep
			Zinc Sulphate solution: – as above but with ZnSO4
	100 ml bottle with top and small glass beads to assist mixing
	Fresh faeces
Method
	Mix 2g of fresh faeces with 58 ml of floatation solution or: Mix 2g of fresh faeces with 2.5 ml of 0.1% methylene blue solution (aids visualisation) and 55.5 ml of floatation solution
	Allow the mixture to settle for 5 minutes
	Using a pipette place 0.3 ml of mixture into each of the 3 chambers in the McMaster slide
	View down the microscope and count the number of worm eggs in each chamber
	Using the 0.3 ml McMaster slide the number of eggs per gram is the number visible x 100
	Volume of sample (faeces + 0.1% methylene blue) + volume of flotation solution Volume of sample x volume per chamber [2 + 58 (or 2.5+55)] Divided by (2*0.3) = epg*100 In this example volume = weight ie 1 ml = 1 g
	The zinc sulphate salt solution is used for Ascaris suum eggs, which do not float in saturated sugar solutions
Example of pig worm egg count results – not to scale – coccidian are small
Strongyle egg – cannot distinguish species		Trichuris suis egg		Strongyloides ransomi has a larvae inside the egg - piglet
Metastrongylus eggs (note larva in egg)		Ascaris suum egg		Coccidiosis (much smaller than worm eggs) – Isospora suis

Size comparison of the common pig parasite eggs

Pig Parasites General

The major sites where the parasites of the pig can be found