The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: Hillview Farm on April 19, 2013, 03:40:40 pm
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Sorry for a novice question.
What does everyone use to keep the flys off? when do you use and how often?
with out cattle we use spot on but on the box it only says for lice, ticks and blowfly strike. What exactly is blowfly? I know what strike is but not blowfly....
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Novice here, too.
But ...... think that blowfly cause the "strike". The "buzzy" flies :rant: that you get.
Rabbits get it too and then it is usually referred to as "fly strike".
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Blowflies are the brightly coloured flies that lay their eggs on dirty wool or wounds and then the maggots hatch out and start to devour our stock alive :-\
Prevention wise - we dag the sheeps bums, shear and/or use (in our case) Clik which is supposed to prevent the process. I know others use other preventative treatments. If we actually have strike we've used crovect for severe or battles maggot oil for mild cases.
Regular checks over your sheep during warm/damp days and if you see any acting 'odd' or hanging away from the flock do a good thorough check over.
I've known cats with flystrike. Lost 2 jacobs that we'd lent our land to and last year caught it early on 2 lambs and it was successfully treated.
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We use crovect a couple of times a year, but the man who shears our sheep does it. It's meant to be horrible stuff. He also says that we can't crovect before we shear them. I think it may damage his hands, I'm not sure.
Someone else will be able to tell you.
Anyway, because of this I bought something called Blowfly Repel to spray on to them before shearing.
Haven't used it yet though but someone recommended it.
J xxxx