I would like to put in place a all encompassing worming and treatment strategy for our cattle. We currently have 46 Dexters, breeders steers and followers and they are out all year round. To minimise having to get them in I would like to treat say 3 or 4 times a year with an all encompassing pour on which will minimise handling and stress. All the recommended treatments refer to applications so many weeks after turn out - we obviously don't turn out!
Is there someone in the same same position as us who has developed a regime that works and if so what treatments would you recommend and on what programme.
Thanks for all your help - the site is a lifesaver
Worming Strategy
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Kathy Millar
- Posts: 725
- Joined: Wed May 19, 2004 4:53 pm
- Location: Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
Hi Oliver,
You have touched on a big topic! Personally, I have researched (from the internet mostly) the topic in order to fully understand what the heck is going on inside and out, then I try to make informed decisions. My preferred method is to sample the manure for parasite eggs then base my decision whther or not to worm on that. However, things like tapeworm and liver fluke eggs don't show up on simple fecal flotation samples so if these are likely to be a problem, then you must have a lab check the manure sample. I purchased a microscope so I can do the simple fecal flotation as I have sheep and I don't like worming without knowing what is going on. If you worm by the calendar you could be wasting time and money as the animals may not need it.
This is a big topic and really does deserve some research as it is important. Having said all this, I have never wormed my cows but I do worm the weanlings as they have not yet developed any resistance to the parasites. I do a lot of field rotation, feed good quality hay and grass, make sure they have minerals and watch the animals carefully.
Wow, out on grass all year around, lucky Dexters!
Kathy
You have touched on a big topic! Personally, I have researched (from the internet mostly) the topic in order to fully understand what the heck is going on inside and out, then I try to make informed decisions. My preferred method is to sample the manure for parasite eggs then base my decision whther or not to worm on that. However, things like tapeworm and liver fluke eggs don't show up on simple fecal flotation samples so if these are likely to be a problem, then you must have a lab check the manure sample. I purchased a microscope so I can do the simple fecal flotation as I have sheep and I don't like worming without knowing what is going on. If you worm by the calendar you could be wasting time and money as the animals may not need it.
This is a big topic and really does deserve some research as it is important. Having said all this, I have never wormed my cows but I do worm the weanlings as they have not yet developed any resistance to the parasites. I do a lot of field rotation, feed good quality hay and grass, make sure they have minerals and watch the animals carefully.
Wow, out on grass all year around, lucky Dexters!
Kathy
Kathy
Home Farm, Vancouver Island, Canada
Home Farm, Vancouver Island, Canada
Kathy, I bought a microscope too with the intention of doing simple tests myself but it is still in the box, what method do you use for getting the slides made up and readable I read I have to make a sugar solution or something is that right?
On the general subject of worming, wasn't it regimental worming which caused resistant worms in sheep? Much better to take dung samples and worm if necessary. All animals carry some worms so a low count should not cause concern. If cows start to look gaunt quick sampling and treatment would be best.
On the general subject of worming, wasn't it regimental worming which caused resistant worms in sheep? Much better to take dung samples and worm if necessary. All animals carry some worms so a low count should not cause concern. If cows start to look gaunt quick sampling and treatment would be best.
Waiting until you have a problem is not the correct strategy in my view, prevention is far better than trying to cure a worm problem.
I personally do not have a regimented policy but do worm my animals on a regular basis. At housing in December I will worm as I want my cows to get all they can from their winter rations and I hate the thought of feeding worms. After calving all animals are kept within paddocks close to the buildings until after haymaking. When I move them to the hay aftermaths they are wormed again (about end of July). I find this system of worming before putting onto fresh grazing keeps the worm burden down and helps keep the amount of wormer required to a minimum.
The main reason for resistance to wormer is that incorrect dosses are given and the worms are not killed. So when you are guesstimating the weight of your animals, always round the dose up not down, it would be very difficult to overdose on wormer, so a little too much is better than not enough.
I personally do not have a regimented policy but do worm my animals on a regular basis. At housing in December I will worm as I want my cows to get all they can from their winter rations and I hate the thought of feeding worms. After calving all animals are kept within paddocks close to the buildings until after haymaking. When I move them to the hay aftermaths they are wormed again (about end of July). I find this system of worming before putting onto fresh grazing keeps the worm burden down and helps keep the amount of wormer required to a minimum.
The main reason for resistance to wormer is that incorrect dosses are given and the worms are not killed. So when you are guesstimating the weight of your animals, always round the dose up not down, it would be very difficult to overdose on wormer, so a little too much is better than not enough.
Martin.
Maidstone
Kent
Maidstone
Kent
Martin, I was not suggesting that anyone waits until they have a problem before worming, I was suggesting that they find out their herd's status worm-wise before worming. Also I do not think the cause of resistance to wormers is as straightforward as simply under-dosing, it seems to be far more likely that inappropriate worming is also a cause.
I have just had a regime worked out between my vets and me re worming etc of both cattle and sheep.
Basically adult cattle should not need regular worming except for fluke wormer once a year (for ease, I do this in Dec/Jan) I also vaccinate against blackleg as a neighbour has lost a steer or two in the next door field. I put pour on Dectomax on the youngstock at about 4 months (or earlier if there are signs of infestation) and then only if they seem to need it. They are Vaccinated against blackleg only once which does not give total benefit but so far all OK and neighbours do this successfully. I do apply Spot on fairly regularly during Spring/Summer and give an anti-fly mineral lick which seems to work.
Re sheep. There are farms south of Edinburgh where sheep cannot be kept for the foreseeable future due to worm problems owing to resistance to all known wormers! Our vet has altered our worming programme totally. Only animals which show a problem through either worm counts or mucky backsides are wormed ... well, I worm all lambing ewes immediately after lambing with a total wormer including fluke and I fluke them in Summer/Autumn too. The lambs are wormed against nematodirus about 4 to 5 months and then no wormer except fluke.
The killed lambs' livers are obviously checked and so far no cattle and fewer than the average lambs livers have been condemned so I think the system works.
Jo
Basically adult cattle should not need regular worming except for fluke wormer once a year (for ease, I do this in Dec/Jan) I also vaccinate against blackleg as a neighbour has lost a steer or two in the next door field. I put pour on Dectomax on the youngstock at about 4 months (or earlier if there are signs of infestation) and then only if they seem to need it. They are Vaccinated against blackleg only once which does not give total benefit but so far all OK and neighbours do this successfully. I do apply Spot on fairly regularly during Spring/Summer and give an anti-fly mineral lick which seems to work.
Re sheep. There are farms south of Edinburgh where sheep cannot be kept for the foreseeable future due to worm problems owing to resistance to all known wormers! Our vet has altered our worming programme totally. Only animals which show a problem through either worm counts or mucky backsides are wormed ... well, I worm all lambing ewes immediately after lambing with a total wormer including fluke and I fluke them in Summer/Autumn too. The lambs are wormed against nematodirus about 4 to 5 months and then no wormer except fluke.
The killed lambs' livers are obviously checked and so far no cattle and fewer than the average lambs livers have been condemned so I think the system works.
Jo
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Kathy Millar
- Posts: 725
- Joined: Wed May 19, 2004 4:53 pm
- Location: Vancouver Island, BC, Canada
I find this topic really fascinating and have even purchased a great veterinary parasitology reference manual by William J. Foreyt of Washington State University (Blackwell Publishing). Excellent illustrations!
To do simple fecal flotation, first make a saturated sugar solution by heating up 355 ml of water and dissolving in it, 454 g of white granulated sugar. Store in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. I keep mine in the fridge to further slow down any evaporation and prevent mold growth.
Take 3 pellets (or an equivilant in cow pie), place in a small container or test tube, and add enough of the solution to cover. Mash up, add a bit more solution so it is pourable, then strain into a test tube. I use bits of fibreglass mosquito netting. Crinoline material works too, just make sure it isn't too fine a mesh or you won't get anything coming through. Do not press the mixture through the mesh. You may want to try the little strainer gizmo that vets use.
Then add more sugar solution so it comes to the top, then place a slide cover on top making sure it is contacting the liquid. Wait about 30 minutes then remove cover slip and place on microscope slide. Use 100X power as you can see what you need to without taking forever to view the whole slide. There will be bits of veg matter in it and bubbles too, but with a bit of practise and experimenting with different meshes, you will get a feel for it. It's a whole 'nother world down there!
I bought all my supplies on the Internet including the microscope. Do get a mechanical stage and a built-in light with the microscope, makes life easier.
The other thing I do, is sample after worming, to get a feel for the effectiveness of a particular wormer. I am guessing that wormers do not always work and folks are just assuming that they do.
Note that this method is not suitable for detection of fluke eggs.
Kathy
To do simple fecal flotation, first make a saturated sugar solution by heating up 355 ml of water and dissolving in it, 454 g of white granulated sugar. Store in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. I keep mine in the fridge to further slow down any evaporation and prevent mold growth.
Take 3 pellets (or an equivilant in cow pie), place in a small container or test tube, and add enough of the solution to cover. Mash up, add a bit more solution so it is pourable, then strain into a test tube. I use bits of fibreglass mosquito netting. Crinoline material works too, just make sure it isn't too fine a mesh or you won't get anything coming through. Do not press the mixture through the mesh. You may want to try the little strainer gizmo that vets use.
Then add more sugar solution so it comes to the top, then place a slide cover on top making sure it is contacting the liquid. Wait about 30 minutes then remove cover slip and place on microscope slide. Use 100X power as you can see what you need to without taking forever to view the whole slide. There will be bits of veg matter in it and bubbles too, but with a bit of practise and experimenting with different meshes, you will get a feel for it. It's a whole 'nother world down there!
I bought all my supplies on the Internet including the microscope. Do get a mechanical stage and a built-in light with the microscope, makes life easier.
The other thing I do, is sample after worming, to get a feel for the effectiveness of a particular wormer. I am guessing that wormers do not always work and folks are just assuming that they do.
Note that this method is not suitable for detection of fluke eggs.
Kathy
Kathy
Home Farm, Vancouver Island, Canada
Home Farm, Vancouver Island, Canada
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Duncan MacIntyre
- Posts: 2372
- Joined: Tue Mar 30, 2004 12:38 am
- Location: Isle of Bute, Scotland, UK
Fascinating replies on this one, I must say I am pleased to hear how clued up so many are over new thinking on worming of both sheep and cattle. It is a changing scene with so much resistance developing and climate changes making some areas warmer and some wetter, so both worms and fluke are responding. SAC now advise to rotate wormers and in certain circumstances to worm only a proportion of the stock so as to keep some susceptible worms in the population and not leave a free field for the resisitant ones. This is probably simpler in large flocks and herds, but if you only have a few it is difficult to leave 10% unwormed.
As can be seen from the replies it is not very easy just to adopt someone elses plan, it may be totally unsuitable for your circumstances. Find out what those more clued up farmers round about are doing, and ask your vet for help with planning. In sScotland SAC or England and Wales your own advisory services should be able to offer sound advice.
Duncan
As can be seen from the replies it is not very easy just to adopt someone elses plan, it may be totally unsuitable for your circumstances. Find out what those more clued up farmers round about are doing, and ask your vet for help with planning. In sScotland SAC or England and Wales your own advisory services should be able to offer sound advice.
Duncan
Duncan MacIntyre
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Burnside Dexters 00316
Burnside
Ascog
Isle of Bute
Kathy - Thanks for the step by step guide. I'll print that and follow it when I .... I was going to say 'have time' But I'll change that to make time for this new adventure. Hope it saves some money, at present it is a choice between very expensive wormers or very expensive lab fees. Or, of course, both if the results come back indicating worming is necessary!
Here in NZ we are finding that more and more properties have drench resistant worm eggs in the soil. Some properties have worms that are resistant to two drench families.
The NZ vets and Agricultural Scientists are working on the problem, but the general consenus (such as it is, with much debate continuing ) is that we need to drench less and use other methods of worm control. Many farmers here used to drench lambs every six weeks, religiously. We can no longer do that as the speed of increased drench resistance is growing.
They are talking about only drenching particular animals when their Faecal Egg Count reaches a certain level. I asked a Scientist if He thought I should drench newly weaned calves, or leave them. He suggested that if the calves were thriving, that I shouldn't drench them. By drenching them at frequent intervals when young stock are growing up, we are compromising the building up of their natural immunity to worms. He said we shouldn't drench adult animals unless the health of particular animals was compromised and to only drench the affected animals.
Some animals are able to tolerate worms more than others. He suggested we try and breed from the animals that show the ability to thrive, despite having a worm burden. In sheep, it doesn't always mean the ones with the cleanest backsides, as they have found that some sheep produce more mucous in their gut, which sloughes off, taking the worms with it. A FEC is a better indication.
Rotational grazing used to be a practice that farmers felt would prevent the build up of worm egg numbers in the soil, but scientists have found that some eggs can be viable for many months and on a small property, it just isn't possible to have a long rotation between grazings. Grazing the paddocks with other types of stock is a way of interupting the life cycle of the worms of the main animal species being grazed.
Another suggestion was to do a FEC and find out which parasite was causing the problem on your particular property and drench for that parasite only. That way you're not building up drench resistance in other types of parasites which may not be causing your stock any problems at the moment, but more resistant versions of those parasites may well do so in the future.
Its a complicated problem and I don't think there's an easy solution to suit all situations. Each farmer has to find the best solution for their particular animals on their particular piece of land. But we can't afford to ignore the problem as the worms will just keep on improving if we keep on drenching them more than we absolutely have to.
It was suggested that we put drenched animals back onto wormy pastures so that hopefully, any resistant worms that survived the drenching process, could only mate with non-resistant worms and so slow down the speed of resistance across the whole worm population.
Drenching with a small volume of concentrated drench was preferable to a using a large volume of less concentrated drench, as it prevented the animal's stomach flap diverting the drench straight into the fourth stomach instead of going through the first three stomaches first. Milk goes straight to the fourth stomach by this method appariently. Duncan can explain this process better I'm sure.
That's all I can remember at the moment from the lectures I've attended. Its a complicated subject though and I'm sure there'll be lots more to learn from research in the future. But Vets in NZ are taking the whole subject very seriously and are running day courses to discuss the options open to us to try and combat this growing problem.
The NZ vets and Agricultural Scientists are working on the problem, but the general consenus (such as it is, with much debate continuing ) is that we need to drench less and use other methods of worm control. Many farmers here used to drench lambs every six weeks, religiously. We can no longer do that as the speed of increased drench resistance is growing.
They are talking about only drenching particular animals when their Faecal Egg Count reaches a certain level. I asked a Scientist if He thought I should drench newly weaned calves, or leave them. He suggested that if the calves were thriving, that I shouldn't drench them. By drenching them at frequent intervals when young stock are growing up, we are compromising the building up of their natural immunity to worms. He said we shouldn't drench adult animals unless the health of particular animals was compromised and to only drench the affected animals.
Some animals are able to tolerate worms more than others. He suggested we try and breed from the animals that show the ability to thrive, despite having a worm burden. In sheep, it doesn't always mean the ones with the cleanest backsides, as they have found that some sheep produce more mucous in their gut, which sloughes off, taking the worms with it. A FEC is a better indication.
Rotational grazing used to be a practice that farmers felt would prevent the build up of worm egg numbers in the soil, but scientists have found that some eggs can be viable for many months and on a small property, it just isn't possible to have a long rotation between grazings. Grazing the paddocks with other types of stock is a way of interupting the life cycle of the worms of the main animal species being grazed.
Another suggestion was to do a FEC and find out which parasite was causing the problem on your particular property and drench for that parasite only. That way you're not building up drench resistance in other types of parasites which may not be causing your stock any problems at the moment, but more resistant versions of those parasites may well do so in the future.
Its a complicated problem and I don't think there's an easy solution to suit all situations. Each farmer has to find the best solution for their particular animals on their particular piece of land. But we can't afford to ignore the problem as the worms will just keep on improving if we keep on drenching them more than we absolutely have to.
It was suggested that we put drenched animals back onto wormy pastures so that hopefully, any resistant worms that survived the drenching process, could only mate with non-resistant worms and so slow down the speed of resistance across the whole worm population.
Drenching with a small volume of concentrated drench was preferable to a using a large volume of less concentrated drench, as it prevented the animal's stomach flap diverting the drench straight into the fourth stomach instead of going through the first three stomaches first. Milk goes straight to the fourth stomach by this method appariently. Duncan can explain this process better I'm sure.
That's all I can remember at the moment from the lectures I've attended. Its a complicated subject though and I'm sure there'll be lots more to learn from research in the future. But Vets in NZ are taking the whole subject very seriously and are running day courses to discuss the options open to us to try and combat this growing problem.
Inger
NZ
NZ
Interesting replies here, though I am surprised that noone has mentioned the effect of stocking density on worm burdens. We have never experienced problems with worms in cattle, but we used to find it a constant battle with the sheep.
We now have a clean grazing policy for the sheep, although the cattle are not part of, but the need to worm ewes has reduced greatly. Not using artificial fertilisers on the land also helps, as the stocking density is slightly lower. The ewes now get wormed at housing, before lambing, & are turned out onto 'clean' grazing where they stay until weaning. At which time ewes move to aftermath grazing & lambs stay, depending upon the grass, or move to alternate clean aftermaths.
I think that wormers are useful tools but many farmers over the years have seen them as a replacement for good management, throwing out the rest of the toolkit in the process. Careful use can still mean good efficacy, but I think the days of drugging up animals & putting as many as you can on are over (now the subs no longer encourage this).
We've never tried it, but does anyone have any experience of homeopathic remedies for parasites?
We now have a clean grazing policy for the sheep, although the cattle are not part of, but the need to worm ewes has reduced greatly. Not using artificial fertilisers on the land also helps, as the stocking density is slightly lower. The ewes now get wormed at housing, before lambing, & are turned out onto 'clean' grazing where they stay until weaning. At which time ewes move to aftermath grazing & lambs stay, depending upon the grass, or move to alternate clean aftermaths.
I think that wormers are useful tools but many farmers over the years have seen them as a replacement for good management, throwing out the rest of the toolkit in the process. Careful use can still mean good efficacy, but I think the days of drugging up animals & putting as many as you can on are over (now the subs no longer encourage this).
We've never tried it, but does anyone have any experience of homeopathic remedies for parasites?