Dexter Cattle For Sale Discussion Board

Hi
Can you please advise when you first need to worm calves?
Thanks

Been keeping Dexters for 8 years, had hundreds of calves and never wormed any, or treated any for cocci either. Yet, my AA calves have to be treated every year !!! 90% are born inside and stay in till they are 2-3 months old, which I'd have thought made the problem worse but it just doesn't seem to affect them!

I started by worming adults routinely back in 2004. Then my vet suggested doing faecel egg counts (spelling!) to see what worms we actually had. Did that for a few years and never had to worm adults either as very low worm burden found, Dexters or AA's.

We have had to treat for lungworm a couple of times though, which you can tell by their constant coughing/clearing of the throat.

It might be just our farm .. pass! Don't now what other people's experience is?

Ryesdexters wrote:Hi
Can you please advise when you first need to worm calves?
Thanks

Useful brochure can be downloaded here http://www.eblex.org.uk/documents/conte ... 070211.pdf

Much the same experience as yourself Clive.

Very rarely worm, move the cattle around regular between various fields so i don't have a problem. Another cost that the commercial people do as a matter of course that, if you are carefull, with dexters you can get away with not doing.

We did egg count for the first time this year and vet told us not to bother worming as count very low...good news. Not sure if they tested for fluke though...maybe I should go back to the vet and check...