October seasonal focus

As the weather warms up, so too, many parasites are now starting to show more of a presence in flocks and herds. Some are less visible, and some are more visible. Being on guard as to what may be impacting your livestock is an important part of management and avoiding disasters.  

Internal parasites

Keeping a close eye on internal parasite populations continues to be a priority – especially as the worm species may begin to change and more barber’s pole worm shows it presence in samples.

In young cattle, small intestinal worms (Cooperia) and barber’s pole worm numbers build up in springtime and can cause massive pasture contamination that affects weight gains of cattle grazing those paddocks.

This isn’t a blanket occurrence, so the key message here is to Test – Don’t guess! Send dung samples from your stock to a lab for a worm test and worm identification. See ParaBoss ‘advisor finder’ for accredited WEC labs in your area.

Larval cultures will clearly quantify the proportions of the different worm species in the tests, which will help with product choice, and other important management considerations, such as grazing management.

With red meat prices taking a strong turn for the worse, now is not the time to be administering unnecessary treatments on animals, nor neglecting appropriate measures for animal health and wellbeing. Therefore, considered animal health monitoring is more important than ever – both in keeping your animals healthy and keeping costs manageable. Worm tests will remain an important tool to help with monitoring of worm populations in your flocks and herds. Use the opportunity to know what thresholds the different classes of your livestock can withstand and treat accordingly. Worm egg counts are cheap, and accurate, and can really help you fine tune your internal parasite management program.

If past management has been to drench adult ewes onto stubbles – RETHINK this – and gather some information before you pull out the drench. What is the threshold, and what is the worm egg count? Do you need to even drench at all? Ask yourself these questions before you drench your adults.

Keep testing weaners – and know your thresholds for these susceptible animals.

Get a professional’s advice if you are not sure what you should be doing. Check out our drench decision guides.

External parasites

Sheep blowflies are starting to be more active – and the early warm spell has definitely given them a head start. Some moisture will help keep the populations going, so vigilance is key here. Give some time and thought to putting a flystrike management plan together for your flock BEFORE things get busy with flies, or other jobs such as harvest, hay or other things – to minimise the impact of flies on your flock. Your plan should consider the role and past use of the different chemical GROUPS and what future management may look like. Don’t fall into the habit of doing what you have always done.

Chemical rotations for flies is critically important. Don’t use the same chemical group as last year, or the same chemical group you used to treat lice. Recent research has shown that when rotating from dicyclanil (e.g. CLiK), avoid going straight to imidacloprid as this will only make the resistance worse. Instead, rotate to another chemical group e.g. spinosad, ivermectin. For more details see FlyBoss tools.

Tick numbers on cattle and in paddocks will be increasing with the warmer weather and keeping an eye on numbers is key here also. Remember to use an effective product, and where possible use a different chemical GROUP to last time you treated. We have in the past run some very informative webinars about bush ticks and cattle ticks, so check these out if you are after some of the latest information about these parasites. Here is the link to all our webinar recordings.

Staying on the front foot with regard to parasites is your best bet to keeping impacts to a minimum, maximising production in your stock, and keeping costs under control.