Breeding Technique

Breeding Technique

1. Clay Pot
We use the clay pot because leech prefer to stay underneath of the pot because it cold and makes as its habitate.

2. Orchid Net
This is used if the leech tank is actually positioned outside of the house to prevent direct sunlight. Remember, leech might die if expose direct sunlight. Other than that leech is aggressive in laying eggs in dark and cold environment.

3. Water Lily
This plants are typically provides location for the leech to lay its eggs. Typically the eggs in cocoon will be attached at the root. In some cases the root also provide supplemental food. Other than rotten wood also can be put in the tank where organism will start to develop.

4. PVC Pipe
Basically is used as drain pipe so that water can be drained incase water is contaminated or having strong odour. Normally water is not required to be changed for the whole process of leech breeding except topping up as and when required. When ever draining, slot in the sponge in the piping to prevent from any eggs from leaving the tank.

5. Water quality
Leech requires water that is clean and no acis . The best PH is above 5.5 . Typically is rain water or treated tap water can be used for leech breeding. Try not use river water as it might contain fish egg which later on can harm the leech and its eggs

6. Soil
To create a murky environment, please use soil which is put into a plastic bag which will helps leech to breed faster. Also add some booster into the plastic together with soil.

7. Feeding
Can be done using eel and catfish. Booster works as supplement. This feeding process is basically can be extended with usage of booster. Booster typically used to a)To substitute eel and catfish b)To control water temperature c)Easiest and efficient techique in leech farming d)Suitable for faming in Polytank, Canvas and concrete pond.

Leech Therapy

They bite, slither, and slide -- and they save fingers and lives. While the sight of a wriggling, blood-sucking leech may make many people feel queasy, the spineless worms can also help people feel better -- as NATURE's BLOODY SUCKERS shows. The ancient physician's art of using leeches has made a modern medical comeback: the worms help doctors do everything from reattach severed fingers to treat potentially fatal circulation disorders.

Leeches have been used by physicians since ancient times.

Leeches -- which are found all over the world, living mostly in fresh water -- have long had a place in the doctor's medical kit. Five thousand years ago, Egyptian medics believed that letting a leech sip a sick patient's blood could help cure everything from fevers to flatulence. And in medieval Europe, leeches were so closely associated with doctors that physicians were called "leeches" -- and they used millions of the parasites annually to treat patients.In the 20th century, however, most doctors turned away from the worms, which in nature feed on everything from frogs to alligators. A few physicians, however, saw that leeches might play a special role in certain kinds of surgery, by helping promote blood flow to damaged tissue. That's because when leeches bite a victim, their unique saliva causes blood flow to increase and prevents clotting. As a result, once bitten, victims can bleed for hours, allowing oxygenated blood to enter the wound area until veins re-grow and regain circulation.The leech is invaluable in microsurgery when faced with the difficulties of reattaching minute veins. Ears have such tiny veins that, in the past, no one was able to successfully reattach them. Then, in 1985, a Harvard physician was having great difficulty in reattaching the ear of a five-year-old child; the tiny veins kept clotting. He decided to use leeches and the ear was saved. This success established leeches in the modern medical world. Since then, leeches have saved lives and limbs, reducing severe and dangerous venous engorgement post-surgery in fingers, toes, ear, and scalp reattachments; limb transplants; skin flap surgery; and breast reconstruction.
Perhaps the best known advocate of medical leeches is Roy Sawyer, an American researcher. Several decades ago, he recognized the potential benefits of "leech therapy" and started one of the world's first modern leech farms. Today, the company -- Biopharm, based in Britain -- provides tens of thousands of leeches every year to hospitals in dozens of countries. Two species are commonly used in leech therapy, which can last for up to 10 days.



Leeches can help promote blood flow to damaged tissue.

Leeches do have their downsides. Sometimes, they slip off patients and reattach themselves in unwanted places. And no matter how helpful, some patients simply can't stomach the thought of a blood-sucking parasite burrowing into their skin. So some scientists have developed a "mechanical leech" that can perform some of the same duties -- without the gross-out factor.

"In the case of the leech in medicine, we think we can improve on nature," says Nadine Connor, a University of Wisconsin at Madison scientist who in 2001 helped develop the mechanical leech. The device, which looks a little like a small bottle attached to a suction cup, delivers an anti-clotting drug to damaged tissue and then gently sucks out as much blood as needed. And, unlike real leeches, the mechanical version is insatiable and can remove as much blood as doctors think is necessary (real leeches drop off when engorged with blood).

"But perhaps the mechanical device's biggest advantage is that it is not a leech," says Connor. "People don't want this disgusting organism hanging on their body. This added psychological stress for both patient and family members compounds an already difficult situation."

Other physicians, however, still swear by the natural wrigglers. Leeches, they say, are a nearly perfect -- and self-reproducing -- surgical tool. And the leech's bite, they add, isn't nearly as bad as its reputation.



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FACTS OF LEECH

Leeches are ‘worms’ with suckers on each end. Leeches can range in size from from a half of inch to ten inches long. They are green or black in colour. Some feed on decaying plant material. Others are parasites, feeding on blood and tissue of other animals. The one that typically is feeded is Hirudo Medicinalis
Blood-sucking leeches suck your blood in two ways: they use a proboscis to puncture your skin, or they use their three jaws and millions of little teeth. They live just about anywhere there is water. Leeches find you by detecting skin oils, blood, heat, or even the carbon dioxide you breathe out.
Leeches do not feed often. That is because they take in a lot when they do feed.
Doctors often used leeches in the past to draw blood. Some barbers used to do surgery as well as cutting hair, and they used leeches. When a barber finished surgery, he took the bloody bandage and wrapped it around a pole to show he did surgery, too. That’s how the white and red swirled barber pole came to be.
Today, maggots and leeches are being used for different reasons. Scientists are studying leech saliva. They believe the substance that stops or prevents blood clots will one day be able to be used on humans. Researchers have also identified several medical compounds which can be developed from leech saliva. The anticoagulant and clot-digesting properties of these substances make them potentially useful as drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes. Leeches can be “milked” for their secretions without being harmed, and research is continuing into the possibility of synthetically engineering leech saliva.
And leeches are still being used to suck blood! Doctors are now turning to leeches to help restore blood circulation to grafted tissue and reattached fingers and toes. In 1985, microsurgeons in a Boston hospital used leeches to save the ear of a 5 year old boy that had been bitten off by a dog. The leech can remove any congested blood to allow normal circulation to return to the tissues, thus preventing gangrene from setting

Respiration
Respiration takes place through the body wall, and a slow undulating movement observed in some leeches is said to assist gaseous exchange. Aquatic leeches tend to move to the surface when they find themselves in water of low oxygen content. As a fall in atmospheric pressure results in a small decrease in dissolved oxygen concentrations, rising leeches in a jar of water provided nineteenth century weather forecasters with a simple way of predicting bad weather.
Sense Organs
Sensory organs on the head and body surface enable a leech to detect changes in light intensity, temperature, and vibration. Chemical receptors on the head provide a sense of smell and there may be one or more pairs of eyes. The number of eyes and their arrangement can be of some use in Identification, however to properly identify a leech, dissection is required.

Reproduction
As hermaphrodites, leeches have both male and female sex organs. Like the earthworms they also have a clitellum, a region of thickened skin which is only obvious during the reproductive period. Mating involves the intertwining of bodies where each deposits sperm in the others' clitellar area. Rhyncobdellids have no penis but produce sharp packages of sperm which are forced through the body wall.
The sperm then make their way to the ovaries where fertilisation takes place. The clitellum secretes a tough gelatinous cocoon which contains nutrients, and it is in this that the eggs are deposited.
The leech shrugs itself free of the cocoon, sealing it as it passes over the head.
The cocoon is either buried or attached to a rock, log or leaf and dries to a foamy crust. After several weeks or months, the young emerge as miniature adults. Studies show that the cocoons are capable of surviving the digestive system of a duck. Leeches die after one or two bouts of reproduction.