Feet (and mind) Soundness for Autumn

Green grass is great – for feeding ruminants and just as good if you are a parasite larvae or a

footrot bacteria.

The scientists call it “the spread phase” when transmission of footrot occurs with dew and temperatures greater than 10 degrees.

Main weapons are:

• To have already removed the infected cases out of ewe flocks

• To trough regularly in zinc sulphate bath. 3 x 20-minute troughing once weekly maybe necessary to really get on top of virulent strains. For benign strains (cases that just cause bad scald without lifting), troughing daily for 5 days can eliminate it off the skin.

• FOOTVAX booster at crutching time at least 1 month before the ram will also prevent the build up of cases that occurs through thisa time. If you have never used footvax and are planning more for the future, footvax sensitizer now can give you options to boost later post mating or at shearing. It has been around a long time, but really does seem to take the workload and stress out of managing lame sheep.

• Antibiotics are a salvage option and help prevent a lot of culling and wastage. The follow-up after treatment is really important to ensure you have effected cure and not just suppression of the disease.

• Culling cases in the spread phase can be frustrating, expensive and futile if you have not got more footrot tolerant genes coming in via your ram source.

Really looking forward to hearing what Deb Lehmann has to say on these topics and many more next month. I think we all feel that handling this disease process can be done a lot better or more efficiently somehow.