Author Topic: resistant fluke (Read 3289 times)

Marlboro · « **on:** January 14, 2013, 05:22:18 pm »

Fluked them all 10 days ago with Fasinex, today one of the old girls has the typical bottle jaw I remember from my youth. Phoned the vet and was told to redo them all with Flukiver. They are all in to sort tomorrow for the Heptavac p for the young girls so we have just managed to catch the one thats showing obvious signs and drenched her, hope she will be all right. Has anyone else got resistant fluke, can't imagine I underdosed her as she is no where near the heaviest of them.

shep53 · « **Reply #1 on:** January 14, 2013, 07:22:08 pm »

Don't know the science but Fasinex needs a fairly healthy liver for it to work successfully , it sounds as if her liver is damaged and thus it couldn't work, Flukiver works in a different way , so will kill . Did you dose for fluke in the autumn /early winter ?? if so how long was the interval between doses ??. Be carefull not to stress the ewe as her liver is very delicate ,she will probably need extra feed especially if in lamb

Dans · « **Reply #2 on:** January 14, 2013, 07:38:39 pm »

I've heard varying thoughts on if liver damage affects how triclabendazole based drugs (such as fasinex) works.

A treatment can fail for a number of reasons. Underdosing is one reason and sheep can be heavier than they look. Doses can be spat out/miss the mouth (which can lead to underdosing), drugs may have been stored badly. Resistance is one reason for failure in treatment, best way to tell is to do a FEC before and after the next time you treat with a triclabendazole based drug.

There's no reports in this country yet of resistance with closantel based drugs (such as flukiver), but these can only kill fluke after ~6 weeks, where as triclabendazole kills fluke from 1 or 2 weeks old (can't remember exact time off the top of my head), so it is worth finding out if you have resistance to triclabendazole on your farm or not.

Hope that helps

Dans

Marlboro · « **Reply #3 on:** January 15, 2013, 04:12:47 pm »

Well, just finished drenching them all, and yes it's easy to get a dose up my sleeve and elsewhere but I always give more if that happens. She is an old broker which I bought last year so do not really know much of her history, they were drenched before going to the tup. The drench in January was a brand new bottle.
At the moment she is in with a couple of others with bad feet and when I left was happy tucking into the haylage, shes in pretty poor condition but because she is one of the flighty ones I didn't want to keep her in to feed up. She can stay in till after scanning next Monday and if shes in lamb can go with the ones needing extras. Otherwise she can go with my six ewe lambs which did not go to the tup this year and just have a little extra with them.
I did put 11 hogs to the tup, they are all bottle reared so I go on size and they are good strong girls. My flock consists of old brokers and bucket reared over two years. Makes for interesting feeding as half of them are jumping all over me and the oldies standing at a safe distance.

There is advice to redrench after 6 weeks, do you think its ok to wait and do them as I move them out after lambing, they start on 8th March plus of course 7 weeks so is that too long for the late lambers?

SallyintNorth · « **Reply #4 on:** January 15, 2013, 05:23:28 pm »

Our vet told us that by the time you see the bottle jaw in a sheep, she's pretty far down the line and the odds are against her making a full recovery.

In cattle, they seem to be able to recover from quite a bit of liver damage, but in sheep by the time you see symptoms like this they've lost a lot of liver function.

shep53 · « **Reply #5 on:** January 15, 2013, 06:51:14 pm »

Quote from: Marlboro on January 15, 2013, 04:12:47 pm

[size=78%]There is advice to redrench after 6 weeks, do you think its ok to wait and do them as I move them out after lambing, they start on 8th March plus of course 7 weeks so is that too long for the late lambers?[/size]

While far from ideal, since you seem to have a fluke problem ( investigation needed ) my advice would be to very quietly dose just before the start of lambing

Marlboro · « **Reply #6 on:** January 17, 2013, 04:14:51 pm »

Thanks 'Shep' I think you are right, I'll do them again. The old girl has lost all of her bottle jaw now and seems quite content, hope her liver is not much worse than mine. Just come back from having a tooth out so I'm getting more like her every day.
Hoping to escape the worst of the snow inspite of all the dire warnings.