The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: smee2012 on December 20, 2012, 11:59:10 pm
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So, how am I supposed to weigh my sheep? :thinking: I need to know their weight in order to provide the correct medication dosage. Any hints and tips? They are a little on the large side for me to pick up and stand on the bathroom scales!!
Also, is anyone able to tell me the difference between a £40 bottle of Fasinex 100 fluke treatment and a £14 bottle of Norbrook Triclafas fluke drench? As far as I can see they both claim to kill immature and mature flukes and I'd much rather waste half a bottle of the cheaper one (as I only have four sheep to treat) than the pricier one if they both do exactly the same thing! :-\
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You should dose for fluke every 10 weeks through the risk period - usually October through February / March up here, but at the moment is pretty much year round. Your vet will advise on the appropriate routine dosing regime where you are.
Dose rate for Fasinex 100 is 1ml /10kg, for Triclafas is 2ml / 10kg. There is a Fasinex 5% which has the same dose rate as the Triclafas.
Once opened, the Norbrook product (Triclafas) must be used within 28 days - which, given that it's a "don't repeat within 7 weeks" dosing regime, means you dose once and discard the rest. Even if you only dose 3 times a year, at £14 / bottle, that'll cost you £42 per annum.
The Novartis product (Fasinex) will last 12 months after opening if kept in the original packaging, properly closed, in a cool dry place away from light - so one container will enable to you to dose every 10 weeks throughout the year if your vet advises you to do so.
Triclafas min quantity is listed as 1L. Fasinex 5% and 10% both list min quantity as 0.8L.
I haven't found Fasinex 100 or 5% online in 0.8L packs, but the 2.2L pack of the 5% seems to be around £44.
Our this-year's commercial lambs are currently weighing 45-65kgs depending on when they were born. Our Texel x and Charollais x adult ewes weigh around 80kgs when fully fit. If you can't find some way of weighing yours accurately, go along to your local auction mart on primestock day, look at and feel the lambs and see what weights are coming up on the board to get your eye in, then go home and make an educated guess. Dose for the maximum weight you think they might be - you have to overdose by 10x or more the recommended dose to cause any symptoms, and should always dose the group to the heaviest sheep in the group.
Sight unseen and not being any kind of a Zwartbles expert, I'd guess yours would want to be dosed as though they weigh 60kgs if born early in the year and very fit. As they mature their weight will go up to (according to the breed info) around 85kgs - they probably won't hit that weight until they're in their third summer (2-shear.)
So, if my 60kgs seems about right, you'll dose at 12ml of 5% (or 6ml of 100) per sheep this time, gradually increasing to 17ml of 5% (or 8.5ml of 100) for the original sheep over the next 18 months.
If your vet says dose every 10 weeks year-round, then you'll use around 250ml of the 5% on these 4 sheep over the 12 months for which the Fasinex product would remain viable.
Hopefully I've highlighted the info you need and you can do the maths yourself once you know what the vet recommends as far as routine dosing goes. If they say you should only dose once and thereafter only if you get symptoms, then you could try to get away with the Norbrook £14 pack just once. Otherwise it comes down to which is the smallest cheapest bottle of Fasinex you can get - any of them will last you 12 months :)
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Once opened, the Norbrook product (Triclafas) must be used within 28 days
Really? I didn't see that on my bottle, nor in the Norbrook compendium ... I will have to double check now, but I would have expected to see that in the compendium entry really if it was the case ...
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I'm really struggling to get hold of Fasinex around here, even the vet can't get hold of any yet. They are going to give me Trodax instead I think - four pre-loaded injections. This will be my first experience of injecting anything so I've had a good look on You Tube and various instructional websites. It seems fairly straightforward!
Thanks for the advice, Sally :thumbsup: It's awful being a newbie and having to ask so many questions that old hands on here probably think are really obvious. I figured there was probably a good reason for the massive price difference but couldn't work it out!
Give it a year or so and hopefully I won't be such a newbie!! :dunce:
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Once opened, the Norbrook product (Triclafas) must be used within 28 days
Really? I didn't see that on my bottle, nor in the Norbrook compendium ... I will have to double check now, but I would have expected to see that in the compendium entry really if it was the case ...
Well, I got it out of the compendium, so I just went and double-checked. I think I misread it - I took the lefthandside of the page to relate to the same product but perhaps it relates to the product on the previous page? In my defence, I haven't used Norbrook's compendium before, I mostly use NOAH but it doesn't cover this product.
If so, I'll leave you to do the maths yourself - on the face of it, Norbrook is cheaper than Fasinex 5%, easier for you to source in smaller bottles, and lasts the same ( ::) :-[), so no reason to not buy that one.
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I got my Trodax from the vet, and he came out this afternoon to show me how to inject the sheep. He did the first one and I did the other three. The cost of the jabs was less than £5 :thumbsup: and although I did have to pay for the vet's time, I am now confident of doing all my own injections in the future and I think £5 a year is a much more economical way of doing my fluke treatment.
I asked the vet about frequency of treatment and he said that one dose in November/December time is absolutely fine for us so that's reassuring to know!
I did manage to stab myself with the needle in the process, so I guess that means that I'll be free of fluke too ::)
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Result! :thumbsup:
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Is it safe to use in pregnant ewes?
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I used trodax a couple of years ago and my tup lambs really improved after more so than the ewe lambs I used fasinex on... different feilds different sheep but very different results
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Is it safe to use in pregnant ewes?
Yes. NOAH Compendium Warnings page for Trodax (http://www.noahcompendium.co.uk/Merial_Animal_Health_Ltd/Trodax_34_ACU-_w_v_Solution_for_Injection/-31788.html)
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As far as I can see, they are all Triclabenzadiole based products, I have just bought Tribex for my sheep, as it comes in a bottle just about the right size for me to use most in one go (but is essentially the same thing as triclafas), Fasinex does seem to be amore expensive product, and I have no idea why.