Why a key management practise can prevent costly losses

There are plenty of opportunities to buy stock at the moment but profits are being lost through poor management.

Trading opportunities generated by lower stock prices could prove costly with cases of losses after sheep were brought into Victoria last month.

But those losses could have been avoided if the sheep had been quarantine drenched with the correct active ingredient.

The correct quarantine drench could have saved losses in sheep bought in from other areas.

ParaBoss advisor and consultant Megan Rogers said there were reports of stock losses in February after sheep were brought in from interstate.

Ms Rogers said five mobs were bought in February from northern NSW and after arriving in Victoria, were tested and found to have worm egg counts of about 5000.

“They were treated with a drench that did not contain either of the ‘new’ active ingredients (derquantel and monepantel),” Ms Rogers said.

“Two weeks later sheep were still poor, some died and worm egg counts had actually gone up, with one mob recording 18,000 eggs per gram.

“A veterinary post-mortem examination confirmed death was due to barber’s pole worms.”

Ms Rogers said deciding not to drench stock when they arrived on farm was fraught with danger.

“What we do know is that the worm situation on an individual farm is very much specific to that property and herd/flock,” Ms Rogers said.

“So a drench that usually works on your property is likely to not work against worms that came from somewhere else.”

Not all drenches will work on all properties, and egg counts and worms can build up quickly.

Ms Rogers said to be effective, a quarantine drench must contain one of the new active ingredients (derquantel and monepantel), along with three other broad-spectrum chemicals.

She said more specific strategies could be required when buying sheep, cattle or goats from areas with high resistance, including northern NSW, or where liver fluke are common which is most of the higher rainfall and irrigation areas of southeastern Australia.

“The key here is test, don’t guess,” Ms Rogers said.

“Information is key to staging a campaign on the worms in your herd/flock, and the power of knowledge is very much integral to effective management of internal parasites and preventing the onset of resistance.

“The only way to know exactly which worms you are dealing with is to test and request a larval differentiation … to give a firm diagnosis of which worms are present.”