Subtle Shifts – Massive Gains

We are in for a green one. That brings opportunities, speculation and some additional animal health considerations. With where the markets are at, investing a wee bit more in the “good stuff” can improve performance or prevent losses.

So where do you start?

Worm control. We have quietly learnt a great deal about parasite management and drench effectiveness over the last few years. No one sold up because of it, and most are still farming sheep. Many have made subtle changes and sucked-up the price of strategic novel drench use along with more effort to monitor.

a. Buying in “bad worms” is a fast track to failure without effective quarantine measures.

b. In these wetter than normal summer conditions it is perfect for big waves of parasite larval emergence. The hatching of eggs is optimised and many larvae come up from the subsoil to get consumed of fresh pick grass. You can see scour and check of stock before the egg counts even register. Paddocks that had set-stocked ewes and lambs in the spring can be dynamite for worm challenge now. DON’T slacken drench intervals with lambs when on grass in these conditions.

c. Drench failure at the back end of Autumn one year does not mean the end of its use the following year. Massive losses and failure can be avoided by monitoring with drench checks in Feb –March.

d. Avoiding the “parasite thing” with forage crops post weaning is becoming common practice. This takes some planning. But it’s not too late to spray out and drill some rape/grass type feed for hoggets in late autumn or for twinning ewes in August, especially with this rain. Not only have forage crops enabled less drench use, but it has guaranteed more consistent growth rates of lambs and better BCS/ovulation for ewes.

e. Ewes grazing behind lambs and using more cattle does prevent late autumn worm build up. It prevents lambs consuming and multiplying more lamb worms.

f. MA ewes do not really need any drenching pre-tup if up to weight and well feed. Having said that, light ewes post weaning in these “soft feed” conditions are likely to benefit from a drench. With targeted ewe drenching systems, it has meant a reconsideration of where and how minerals are is suppled.