Small Ruminant Research ELSEVIER Small Ruminant Research 21 (1996) 133-137 Oesophageal fistulation of West African Dwarf sheep and goats for nutritional studies A.Y. Woji a, P.A. Iji bT* a Bureuu for Animal and Forest Resources, Kaduna, Nigeriu b Depurtment oj’Anima1 Science, Ahmudu Be110 University, P.M.B. 1044, Zariu. Nigeriu Accepted 21 December 1995 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON Abstract West African Dwarf sheep and goats were subjected to oesophageal fistulation and monitored over the following few weeks. Response to surgery was generally good. Although there were initial changes in body weight, rectal temperature, packed cell volume and blood haemoglobin contents, these returned to near normal values after a few days. Goats under 10 months of age died within a few hours of surgery. When kept on pastures for sample collection, animals were observed to lose condition if grazing was continued for longer than 4 h at any one time. It is recommended that only adult animals of the two breeds should be fistulated for nutrition studies and sample collection should be of limited duration. Keywords: Animals; Cannula; Fistulation; Grazing; Technique 1. Introduction The oesophageal fistulation technique was de- vised to aid the study of the botanical and chemical composition of the diet selected by grazing animals and was first reported by Claude Bernard in 1855 (Van Dyne and Torell, 1964). The surgical technique and cannulae used on ru- minants have undergone various modifications (Torell, 1954; Cook et al., 1958; Hamilton et al., 1960; Chapman and Hamilton, 1962; McManus et al., 1962; Cook et al., 1963; Chapman, 1964; Bishop and Forseth, 1970; Little and Takken, 1970; Pfister * Corresponding author at: Department of Animal Science, Waite Campus, University of Adelaide, Glen Osmond, S.A. 5064, Australia. Tel. 61 8 303 7394; Fax. 61 8 303 7114; E-mail. piji@waite.adelaide.edu.au. et al., 1990) and have been used mainly in developed countries on temperate breeds of ruminant animals. Generally, oesophageal fistulation of small rumi- nants is uncommon and there appears to be no report on the technique with the relatively small-bodied breeds that are indigenous to many areas of Africa. This paper presents an account of our experience with oesophageal fistulation performed on individu- als of the West African Dwarf sheep (rams) and goats (young and adult males and doe). 2. Materials and methods 2.1. The animals Ten animals, comprising one doe, three young and three adult bucks and three rams were used for 00921-4488/96/.$15.00 0 1996 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII SO921 -4488(96)00850-4