The Biology of the Goat

Double-pored ruminant tape worm

oocyte: gray colored, embryonated when laid, smooth, triangular 56 to 70 µm

This parasite lives in the small intestine of the goat.

A mature tapeworm can be as much as 4 yards long (3.7 meters)
and is composed of many segments called proglottids.
The scolex (head) attaches to the intestinal wall with suckers.

Each mature proglottid has two sets of reproductive organs which
open to pores from which the eggs pass.
Hundreds of testes fill the rest of the segment.

Each proglottid produces eggs in the intestine or after it has passed out with the feces.

The triangular-shaped, gray colored egg contains the oncosphere (larva).

The egg is eaten by a tiny beetle mite that lives on the pasture.

The larva (cysticercoid) hatches from the egg in the beetle's intestine then penetrates through the gut wall into the body cavity of the mite.

Cysticercoid appears in body cavity of mite in about 15 weeks.

The mite crawls up blades of grass to be eaten by the goat.

The mite is digested allowing the tapeworm larva to escape.
The larva attaches to the lining of the small intestine where it matures
into an adult tapeworm in about 5 to 6 weeks.

Clinical Signs

Most sources suggest that the goat suffers no problems from light infections of the Monezia tapeworm.

However, heavy infections can cause impaction when many large worms fill the small intestine.
Death has been known to occur in adult goats from severe loads.
Young animals must suffer some degree of ill health or unthriftiness from tape worm infections.

The adult worm rarely lives more than about 3 months in the goat.