The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: piggy on June 22, 2010, 09:48:21 pm
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I feel awful noticed today my ram lamb had flystrike,called vet straight away and was very impressed as he was here within half an hour,luckly it was just him and the other 4 lambs were ok,feel awful as he must of had it for a day but hadnt noticed,vet has treated all of them with crovect and jabbed with lambivac,fingers crossed he will be ok.
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you did well one day is good we had a tup last month with a few maggots sheared and treated now , i play rugby with a few hill farmers who tell me of some real horror stories
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It is good that you caught him fairly quickly, some flighty ewes of mine are very difficult to catch, even with flystrike... So then have to get the WHOLE flock in just to treat one...
If you get a small bottle of crovect then you could also treat this yourself, must be quite expensive to get the vet out. I use a spray from the vets, just spray it over the area as you scrape the maggots off, they die very quickly. then dagg the area, and another spray. Works very well (use disposable gloves).
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Vet was very good he sheared all the lambs around the back end before he sprayed them and has left me with the bottle of crovect to do again in 4 weeks.
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Hi Piggy. Not only can you treat flystrike yourself if it happens but you can, and should, also prevent it. Flies start appearing as soon as the weather becomes warm and humid - flies and potato blight like the same conditions. Spray lambs in mid-May, or earlier in the south, ewes at shearing or a couple of weeks later if bare-shorn, then every six weeks until late September. Another product you can use is Clik which you only apply once, but it is rather nastier to the environment. It's better to prevent fly strike rather than just hoping it doesn't happen, because it's grim when it does - it only takes the maggots a few days to grow from the tiny things you would have seen on your ram lamb to seething, greedy monsters which eat the flesh from your sheep and eventually kill them. I have seen some of those horror stories just over my march fence. Lucky you noticed so soon.
Make sure that if your lambs scour they are treated immediately, their back ends are cleaned up and they are given a top-up of Crovect.
Hope he's ok now and I'm glad he wasn't fat, just sunbatheing :)
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I treated mine for fly strike yesterday; and it is quite costly if you only have a few sheep (I only have 5 and my two lambs aren't big enough to be done yet).
A bottle of Crovect set me back around £22 and the applicator was £29...at least I don't have to buy the applicator again! Its very easy to use!
Well done for catching it quickly; you may feel terrible about not having seen it before, but a lot can happen in a day!
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Or instead of the applicator at £29 you can recycle a spray bottle from the bathroom (well washed)
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I got my applicator free with last year's bottle of crovect... but this year couldn't get the size I needed, but can use the same gun on Vetrazin, which is the only one I could get (and big bottle best before 2013!)
If you only have a few sheep you can either try and get a bottle that has a couple fo years left or borrow from a neighbour.
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We have two late born soay lambs. One 10 days old had a blue blob on its rear end yesterday so my wife told me when I got home about 9.15pm
Went up immediately armed with jeyes,water,scissors.
Should have taken running shoes!
Eventually caught the little blighter and sure enough maggots had formed.Hundreds and hundreds of them.
Clipped and cleaned with a solution of Jeyes.
Mother now confused with the smell still looking for her baby .
Went up at first light and the lamb is ok and it suckled mum but she still seems a bit distant compared to how caring/protective she was.
Think I will put a dab of jeyes on her nose.
I thought Soays did not get maggots.
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Where ever did you hear that myth? Soays are sheep and are just as prone to flystrike asd any other. In fact some also have a tendency to scour on new grass which makes them even more prone to strike.
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I would imagine that Jeyes fluid would sting like billy-o and is not the best product against fly strike. Such a young, primitive lamb would already be close to shock after such a lot of maggots so needs to be treated gently. Best to use something like Crovect - carefully on such a young lamb - as it will kill the maggots present and prevent further strike, and will not be so offensive to the mother. If you can get hold of the mother and milk out a small amount of milk then dab it on the lamb's head and rump, she will again recognise it as her own - this will be less stressful and damaging than putting Jeyes fluid on her face. Well done though for dealing with it so promptly or you would have had a dead lamb.
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We had one with it two weeks ago out of 40 odd ewew, we trimmed her up and put a nettex flystrike spray on it. Crovected all of them at the beginning of June, so barring that one ewe, they were clean.
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Checked - the lamb is ok and mum accepts her. The jeyes was diluted and it was all I had to hand at 9.15pm.
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Hey, alls well thats good :)
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I know, you have to use what you can in an emergency - far better than nothing. I'm very glad the ewe accepts her lamb now :) It's a bit like after shearing when the lambs know they can hear their mum but all they can see is this strange skinny creature which just doesn't smell like mum - can take them a while to get back together then. This is a bad year for flystrike with the high temps and drought.
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I have had 7 sheep with fly strike even after precautionary treatment, this year has been bad according to my local farmer. My friend who has a lot of sheep has advised that I use Coopers spot on, so I have and no more strike since (touch wood and all that)
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Its true that these fly products do protect sheep from fly strike but the are not a silver bullet and no reason not to keep a close eye on your stock. You should still clip any dirty backends even if they have been treated.
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Think Coopers Spot On is a treatment for established flystrike but isn't a preventative like Click or Crovect pour on.
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I must correct you cairnhill it is a preventative, and it states this very clearly on the bottle. I must admit it is a very useful product if there is established flystrike as well.
I took advice from an experienced sheep farmer who has used this method for a long time and has very little trouble.