When to Drench?

Article written by Paraboss.

This spring has shaped up to be the ideal season for a real parasite party – the trouble is, none of us want to be invited.  We expect that worms and flystrike will cause major animal health issues in sheep in most areas, goats are already being hammered by worms and that flies and ticks will be a problem for cattle. It pays to know a bit about these issues and take a preventative approach rather than panic once you start to see the effects.

When it comes to worms in sheep and goats, your best friend this spring is going to be a Worm Egg Count. This is useful because a count of more than around 200-500 eggs per gram indicates the sheep will be having a production loss and require a drench (depending on class of stock and species of worm), but also that these sheep are pumping out eggs into an ideal environment, compounding the problem for future months. These sheep won’t look clinically unwell until they get egg counts well into the hundreds or thousands, so a quick Worm Egg Count can help make an early drenching decision in a risky period.

Once you’ve got a Worm Egg Count result, you can get some advice from a Paraboss Accredited Advisor on how to manage the worm burden, you can use the online Drench Decision Guide tool or learn about a longer term, integrated Regional Program, all of this is available on the revamped Paraboss website.

A flystrike plan of attack is going to be essential this season, along with careful monitoring of flocks and treatment of struck individuals.  The online Flyboss Compare Management Tool, which incorporates data from your local weather station, allows you to enter information relating to your sheep and time of shearing and crutching and then toss around different options for chemical prevention over the season and how this influences flystrike risk.

Lice on cattle is not normally an economic problem and should not require treatment, particularly in the warmer weather. Lice in sheep, however is an economic problem that will require careful planning and chemical application. Rotation of chemical families, particularly bearing in mind products with dual label claims against fly and lice is really important.

Another great feature of the Paraboss website that might help you do this is the Product Search function, which allows you to search for any species, for any targeted parasite, based on factors such as withholding periods for meat or wool, wool length, length of protection and look at the known resistance profile of the active ingredients.

Finally, if the weather predictions come to fruition, it will likely be a season where nuisance flies such as Buffalo Fly may trouble cattle across a wider area than generally seen.  Also, keep an eye out for ticks on stock, including cattle tick and paralysis tick. In some states cattle tick is notifiable and, in all areas, preventative measures for flies and ticks are warranted before numbers build.  There are guidelines on how to do this, again under the Regional Programs specific for your area on the Paraboss website.