Three defaunation procedures, two utilizing surface active agents and one involving washing the rumen wall with formaldehyde, were used in an attempt to obtain protozoa-free sheep. Only one treatment produced a sheep free from detectable numbers of protozoa for a period longer than 24 days. In addition, the debilitating side-effects of the treatments on the animals complicated the defaunation experiments.
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LOVELOCK et al. (1982) studied this question.