[Moleskins]

One of my lambs had a yellow poohy bum and I noticed that there were some green flies on it which I assume are the dreaded Lucilia sericata.
I have some Click which it says can be used on lambs but the min weight it gives is 10kg.
So the question is, should I be panicking about flystrike?  ( seen it once, never want to again, so probably a yes to that one).
Next question is what to do, wash the lambs bum and hopefully wash away any eggs that may have been laid?
Treat for flystrike with the Click and if so what dose?
The warm weather is all well and good but this is one of the downsides.

[shep53]

If you have seen shiny emerald green flies on its bum then presume eggs have been laid,maybe use a pair of scissors  and clip all the eggs ( white clusters of small rice ) and all poo stained wool, check all body. IF any eggs are missed CLIK won't kill them it only protects against future stike. consider CROVECT. Sounds as if you may need to take aclose look at everyone  CLIK does not give  a minimum wt CROVECT says  12.5 kg is minimum wt for full blowfly cover, so 20 ml of clik should be ok

[in the hills]

Sorry for my ignorance. Are the flies that cause flystrike shiny green then? What size are they? Like a house fly?

[shep53]

if you google green bottle fly, nice pictures and information

[in the hills]

Thanks Shep53 ...... I ve just done that. Interested to know which fly actually causes strike. Ive got so much to learn.

[FiB]

Me too!  So is Click the preventative of choice here?

[SallyintNorth]

Clic is extremely effective medicinally but brutal environmentally.  I have never used it. 

In my experience, Vetrazin, correctly applied, gives a good balance between reducing risk / preventing disease, frequency of re-application, and damaging the environment.  It is more environmentally benign than the other treatments, lasts a reasonable length of time so only needs reapplying once in a normal northern summer (whatever one of those is now  ) and has seemed to be very effective to me.

BH uses Crovect, does not routinely treat every ovine, does spray the head and shoulders of any lamb with horns or horn buds, does get a few cases of strike each year but very rarely loses a lamb as with daily or twice daily checks, we usually pick strike up quite quickly.  Crovect for treating strike is phenomenally effective.  Crovect is more nasty for the environment than Vetrazin, lasts a little longer so needs reapplying less frequently (but given the length of our fly season, probably needs applying twice, like Vetrazin), and is very effective as a treatment but less easy to apply in a manner that gives complete protection as a preventative.

[Moleskins]

Thanks one and all for your thoughts, washed lambs bum and looked for eggs, none found. Had seen my Ryeland ram scratching his bum / testicles ( typical bloke  ) so gave him a good check round there, agin nothing found. Phew!
Sallyintnorth is Vetrazin hard to apply for any particular reason?
Blimey just googled it and it's £125 for 5lts 

[Fleecewife]

I thought Vetrazin was being taken off the market - they must have changed their minds.

You can get Crovect in smaller sizes, down to 1 litre I think, but it is extremely expensive though.  Worth every penny and lasts for ages if you don't have many to treat.

[SallyintNorth]

Sallyintnorth is Vetrazin hard to apply for any particular reason?

It's not hard to apply, and in fact I find it easier than Crovect and much less noxious for the operator - I just wear impermeable leggings for Vetrazin; I add latex gloves and a face mask if I'm using Crovect.  Both products need to be applied correctly in order to give protection, and this means getting a good spread of product on a wide tranche of fleece.  Crovect protects only where the product has hit the fleece, whereas if Vetrazin is applied as directed they reckon it gives complete protection of that section of the animal.

If the lambs stand still and let you get about three feet back from them, you can get a good wide spread (3" - 4" stripe) of either product across the shoulders, down the back and in an arc around the rump.  Those lambs are correctly protected.  With practice, I reckon I can now get about 80% of lambs this well.  The others get variations from a thin wiggle to a short splash on some or all of the areas I want to protect. 

Yes, both products are pricey.  But if you think they'll save you a lamb a year, they are not hard to cost-justify.

Crovect has the additional benefit that it also works on biting lice, ticks and head flies, (again, if applied correclty for the purpose required) and is a very effective treatment for any sheep which has got strucken.

[jaykay]

I use Crovect and like it. I'm going to have to re-think my treatment regime though, given that I now have sheep whose fleeces I want to use.

We get bad flies here and have had some strike every year, though Crovect prevents the maggots getting into the skin.

[in the hills]

When I collected my sheep from their previous owner, one of the other lambs had been stuck in a fence and was then suffering from fly strike. I didnt see it close up but from a distance it did not look good. I had already found out what I could about sheep ailments and was concerned about the risk of this. T he owner said that he did not routinely give preventative treatment for strike and found soay not to suffer much from it. I was nervous that as a novice I may miss the first signs of strike in an animal so decided to buy some Crovect and treat as I unloaded. The owner told me which product to buy and how to treat.He said that the chemical was a strong one and told me how much to use and how to apply ...... said it would be easy to overdose the lambs. Application for prevention of strike was a thin line down the back of the animal ...... or so I was told. Treated again last year in the same way. Was rather confused by the instructions referring to blowfly , headflies, etc. so thought it best to follow the advice given.

Was this correct? I fear not after following these threads. Any thoughts appreciated.

I have heard of others with Soay who do not treat as a matter of routine. However the thought of strike fills me with dread!!!! 

[Fleecewife]

Soay are sheep as much as any other breed.  On their native island, and certainly in my (now no longer with us) flock, about half suffer from mucky bums when the grass comes in.  Although they have tiny tails, the dung sticks to them like concrete and will most definitely attract flies.
Because they are skinny little things, without the broad back of the big white fluffy kind of sheep, the supplied applicators are not useful for Soay, as the liquid just runs straight off.  We have found that a good quality garden hand spray bottle works well, but you have to work out the correct dose (using water and measuring how many squirts equal the dose).  With the spray bottle you can also treat up under the hind legs and over and under the tail.
Obviously this is not a method recommended by the manufacturers, and I am only telling you what we have found useful - squiggling out of liability 

[in the hills]

Fleecewife I really value your advice. So I am spraying the areas that I feel maybe vulnerable and not applying a single line down the back. Is that correct?

Do you routinely dag ..... remove wool from tail area of soay in spring or not? Presume not seeing that they have a short fleece.

We find it quite difficult to know what to do with our little flock. We have a really good neighbour who is really helpful and we tend to follow his advice regarding preventatives and management but obviously he has only really dealt with commercials so we have to modify things a bit. We use Heptavac but know that some soay keepers dont use this either. We try to group treatments to reduce handling stress but sometimes wonder when I hear management used by others whether we do too much. Its really good to get your advice as someone who keeps soay and your answers are detailed and clear which is what we need. Thank you so much.

[Fleecewife]

I'm glad if my experiences can be of help to others 

No, sorry I wasn't very clear about using the spray bottle    We spray a line down the back, a short burst down behind each front armpit, a drop at each horn, a short bit in front of the back armpits, a horseshoe around the tail and up each leg, both sides of the tail and up under the perineum ie between the back legs.  On wethers before the scrotum has dropped off we might put a tiny dab there, and on a mature tup we do a small bit around the penis.  All of this not exceeding the dose for their size, but it's so much easier to be accurate with the sprayer bottle
We would bring our Soay in with the rest of the flock for dagging, but usually the only bit needing done would be some tails, where lumps of hardened dung need to be removed - not exactly dagging, and sometimes quite hard to get off, maybe needing a bucket of warm soapy water.  Sometimes, as with all breeds, the bit around a tups penis might need a trim too.
Because Soays have such short, neat fleece it is easy to see if there's a problem except when it's under those lumps on the tail, and equally by using the spray bottle it's easy to get Crovect to stick.

For other management, we have always treated our Soay in with our other breeds, which in the past have included Jacobs and Shetlands, although now we have mostly Hebrideans with just a few ancient Soay ewes and one Shetland.   We no longer use Heptavac but that is a very personal decision we have taken and mostly I would recommend that if you have started then carry on.   For worming, we follow the plan set out by The Mordun Foundation, where we only treat where necessary ie if we see a squity sheep we treat that one, but we also do the whole flock pre-tupping.  So they all get done once a year but any with a problem get done as required.  Mordun also recommend that you don't move newly wormed sheep onto new pasture as you are increasing the likelihood of wormer resistance building up.  Our flock is currently closed which helps with disease and worm prevention but if we were to buy in or borrow any stock we would quarantine them for 3 weeks, after worming them on arrival.
For handling Soay - they can be very flighty but they are also very curious, which you can exploit to make them easier to handle.  Ours became so tame that they always had their heads in our pockets looking for treats - except the tups, mentioned elsewhere.   You need to be very calm when handling Soay, and get them used to you by walking around in their pasture frequently without doing anything to them, so they don't automatically associate you with trouble.  Soays are especially good at reading human body language so there's no pretending you haven't got the foot shears in your pocket, or that you are not intending to catch them when you are, however nonchalant you think you are being