Synergistic influence of Ostertagia ostertagi and Trichostrongylus axei on Ostertagia ostertagi larval inhibition and abomasal lesions in cattle.

Parasite-free 4-month-old calves were inoculated with Ostertagia ostertagi and/or Trichostrongylus axei followed 6 weeks later by increasing doses of O ostertagi for 8 weeks. Clinical signs of parasitism, fecal egg counts, and plasma pepsinogen concentrations were monitored, and gross lesions and parasite burdens were determined postmortem. Clinical signs of parasitism were not observed and weight gains were not affected in experimentally infected calves. In calves infected with O ostertagi, mean plasma pepsinogen concentrations were greater than for control calves and were diagnostically significant 4 weeks after inoculation and during the last 4 weeks of serial inoculations with O ostertagi. In calves that were given O ostertagi and T axei, abomasal pH was significantly increased, and abomasal lesions were more pronounced than in control calves or in calves inoculated with only O ostertagi or T axei. Abomasal lymph nodes were enlarged in all parasitized calves; other lymph nodes in the calves inoculated with both O ostertagi and T axei were usually smaller than in calves inoculated with only O ostertagi or T axei. Numbers of O ostertagi-inhibited larvae were small in all inoculated calves, but the percentage inhibition was significantly greater in calves inoculated with both O ostertagi and T axei. The percentage inhibition was 3.53% for the O ostertagi-inoculated calves and 7.07% for calves inoculated with both O ostertagi and T axei. These percentages indicated a synergistic effect of concurrent abomasal parasitism, whereas a synergistic effect on T axei worm burden was not observed. The low percentage of larval inhibition indicated that factors other than host resistance are involved in naturally occurring pretype II ostertagiosis.