November Seasonal Focus

Widespread wet conditions in the east continue to cause headaches and prime parasite populations and other animal health related issues.

With the La Nin`a continuing, this story will remain a constant in the months to come. Ongoing vigilance is the key to keeping parasite populations and the impacts of parasites to a minimum over spring and summer.

Worms this month

👉 Test – don’t guess! It is important to keep an eye on your home-bred livestock worm populations with the help of regular testing and indeed a follow up test after treatment to double check it has been effective.

👉 For cattle– perform a follow up test two weeks after treatment. This also applies to goats and sheep! Don’t assume the product worked – KNOW it worked!

👉 If buying in stock– keep the quarantine drenching (and other biosecurity) protocols nearby to help you avoid buying in a resistance problem (or new parasite for those who don’t have barbers pole worm, or liver fluke!)

👉 With harvest on the doorstep, now is not the time to drop the vigilance– this is when disasters can be set up – by letting things go a little longer than they should due to the pace of harvest. Factor this into your harvest program and be sure to keep a close eye on the two main ones this harvest – worms and flies.

👉 If utilising stubbles post-harvest, consider drenching onto the stubble – to help with some cleaning up – but like the ParaBoss mantra goes – test, don’t guess! – check before you drench any adult animals onto stubbles.

👉 For goats – Keep up to date with worm egg counting.
Now is a good time to prepare browse as alternative to pastures to help grazing higher up, and minimise the amount of worms that are being picked up from close to the ground grazing. Find out more here.

Flies this month

👉 Monitoring fly preventative treatments is integral to ensuring a fly wave does not overtake your flock. Know the stated label period of protection AND keep monitoring regularly. This will ensure that you are not caught off guard. This is especially the case when high rainfall periods are dominating the weather.

Ticks this month

👉 Bush ticks are now starting to busy themselves – and with the tick population comes a period of high risk of Theileria and theileriosis – which is a deadly cattle disease spread by the bush tick. If you are not aware of this disease and have cattle – then do yourself a favour and check out the ParaBoss webinar recording on the topic – it will give you all the information you need to know to protect your livestock. Find all the ParaBoss webinar recordings here.

You can also read more about tick borne diseases here.