[in the hills]

Thank you.

When do you treat for flies? My sheep mentor (as I call him  ) whos family have farmed up here for generations tells me not to treat until May. We are at about 800 ft. Does that sound about right?

[jaykay]

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

  It's true isn't it- my Shetlands can do this too 

[shep53]

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.
 

  VETRAZIN/CLIKZIN/CLIK/CROVECT are all available in 0.8 / 2.2 / 5 litre sizes.   CROVECT is the only one that says once  opened use within 3 mths.   I have used all these at some point but for protection use CLIK,last year 1lamb 2 ewes strike but not until sept when clik was weak

[SallyintNorth]

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.

Fleecewife is doing a grand job and of course has lots of firsthand experience with the little sheep, but I just wanted to reiterate that generally one uses a fanned light spray for flystrike prevention, to cover as much fleece as you want protected - FW points out that Soays etc are so much more narrow than great broad commercials, the supplied applicator sprays out too widely for them.  But the 'thin line' applicator for Crovect is for putting a concentrated line of fluid down onto the skin (you have to part the fleece and expose the skin), which is for treating / preventing ticks and biting lice.  It is confusing until you've done it all, then it becomes more clear and easy to understand.

[FiB]

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.

Fleecewife is doing a grand job and of course has lots of firsthand experience with the little sheep, but I just wanted to reiterate that generally one uses a fanned light spray for flystrike prevention, to cover as much fleece as you want protected - FW points out that Soays etc are so much more narrow than great broad commercials, the supplied applicator sprays out too widely for them.  But the 'thin line' applicator for Crovect is for putting a concentrated line of fluid down onto the skin (you have to part the fleece and expose the skin), which is for treating / preventing ticks and biting lice.  It is confusing until you've done it all, then it becomes more clear and easy to understand.

Thanks Sally for that clarification - So a thin line on the skin doesnt protect agains blow fly?  Mine do have biting lice still (despite d=spot on on skin) so I do want to treat that....  but I'm shearing in a couple of weeks so planned to give them a stripe then and was thinking it would guard against fly strike - so how would I do both?   The more you know, the more you know you dont know!!!  Only a skin application gun came with it - do I need to buy another applicator for fly strike?

[Fleecewife]

Thank you.

When do you treat for flies? My sheep mentor (as I call him  ) whos family have farmed up here for generations tells me not to treat until May. We are at about 800 ft. Does that sound about right?

We treat our lambs in about mid May (unless they are still too young) but unless there is a problem we don't do the adults until after we shear in June sometime.  This requires very careful observation of all the sheep and of the fly species around.  We do dag and crutch our Hebrideans which have very fleecey tails and back ends in general, and of course black fleece which can hide a thousand ills, and we pay particular attention to those Soay tails and we try to keep them clean up to shearing/rooing time.
We are at 1000' in southern Scotland.  We have seen very different conditions in spring and early summer from year to year, so we are adaptable within the general timings.  If a sheep needs to be treated before shearing then we treat, which means that the fleece, or part of the fleece, has to be discarded, but preventing strike is more important than having an extra fleece.

[Fleecewife]

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.

Fleecewife is doing a grand job and of course has lots of firsthand experience with the little sheep, but I just wanted to reiterate that generally one uses a fanned light spray for flystrike prevention, to cover as much fleece as you want protected - FW points out that Soays etc are so much more narrow than great broad commercials, the supplied applicator sprays out too widely for them.  But the 'thin line' applicator for Crovect is for putting a concentrated line of fluid down onto the skin (you have to part the fleece and expose the skin), which is for treating / preventing ticks and biting lice.  It is confusing until you've done it all, then it becomes more clear and easy to understand.

Sorry, yes I was only speaking about Soays which have short fleece so a spray reaches down to the skin, and we don't have biting lice or ticks here  .  Even doing Hebs is a bit different as even the lambs are very fleecey.
And I would re-iterate Sally's earlier warning to protect yourself from the product - Crovect destroys latex gloves so you need to use something stronger than those.

[SallyintNorth]

So a thin line on the skin doesnt protect agains blow fly?  Mine do have biting lice still (despite d=spot on on skin) so I do want to treat that....  but I'm shearing in a couple of weeks so planned to give them a stripe then and was thinking it would guard against fly strike - so how would I do both?   The more you know, the more you know you dont know!!!  Only a skin application gun came with it - do I need to buy another applicator for fly strike?

Yes, Crovect will protect against blow fly only where it touches the sheep; for blowfly protection you want to fan it out to cover as much fleece (not skin) as possible.

Correctly used (which in the case of biting lice is a thin line direct onto the skin, it'll do nothing on the fleece), Crovect will kill off biting / chewing lice - but you must treat all your sheep at once, or within a day or two of each other, and if your neighbour (as in sharing fences) has sheep with these lice then you may as well not bother, they'll be reinfected unless you can get your neighbour (and any of his/her affected fence-sharing neighbours and so on...) to treat at the same time.

If you are struggling to clear up the lice (and don't have fence-sharing neighbours with the problem to provide a source for re-infestation), then maybe it isn't biting lice?  Sucking lice are not affected by Crovect; an injection of Dectomax will deal with sucking lice for you - but will also kill all your dung beetles for 8 weeks, which at this time of year is less than ideal! 

[in the hills]

Thank you all .... you are brilliant!

Starting to get it.

For various reasons our soay girls had not been handled at all before we got them. Although we really liked them we had read a lot of negative things about them and I did wonder whether we had made a mistake for the first week after  they arrived. Bucket train them ? Well easier said than done ...... wouldnt come near a deserted bucket even to find out what was in it .... let alone near a person holding a bucket. We spent so much time sitting with them and just being around. Local farmers must have thought we were bonkers. I have to say that they are now relatively friendly and come running when they are called. Four of the seven will eat from our hands and a couple jump up us just like little dogs. We just try to handle them as quickly and quietly as we can. If things start to go wrong we just leave them a while to calm down.

[summermeadows]

I keep Crovect and Clik to hand. Clik is amazing and is similar to Veterazin but works for longer - 4 months. You only have to fan spray down the back and in an arc over the tail area and the whole animal is covered. Where we live in North Wales, I treat them in April now we're having such warm springs and then again after shearing so they're covered till end of October. Anything less leaves them vulnerable. It costs a fortune but I don't want to see another sheep die or suffer from this dreadful condition. I sometimes use Crovect if I've run out of Clik and have found it pretty good - just that it only lasts 8 weeks and only works where it touches the fleece. Clik has given me total peace of mind since I started using it, but it only works for blowfly prevention, not treatment.

[Fleecewife]

Thank you all .... you are brilliant!

Starting to get it.

For various reasons our soay girls had not been handled at all before we got them. Although we really liked them we had read a lot of negative things about them and I did wonder whether we had made a mistake for the first week after  they arrived. Bucket train them ? Well easier said than done ...... wouldnt come near a deserted bucket even to find out what was in it .... let alone near a person holding a bucket. We spent so much time sitting with them and just being around. Local farmers must have thought we were bonkers. I have to say that they are now relatively friendly and come running when they are called. Four of the seven will eat from our hands and a couple jump up us just like little dogs. We just try to handle them as quickly and quietly as we can. If things start to go wrong we just leave them a while to calm down.

As you have discovered, many of the negative things said about Soays are not true    They love to be friendly once they understand their surroundings and their people.  Well done for making such progress with yours 

[dyedinthewool]

Have I got this right - Clik fan sprayed down back and 'arc'd' around bum area protects from blow flies (fly strike) but doesn't kill any maggots if by chance the flies do manage to strike.

Crovect - in thin line down back on skin kills lice/ticks.  Sprayed ontop of fleece 'all over and under' protects against flie strike  and will kill flies/maggots , head flies etc but only were spray touches.

Can you use Crovect on Lambs ?

If I sprayed now would it be safe to shear in May - for the shearer... though the hot weather has now cooled so will that deter the flies...

I use a bottle spray as I find the gun spray never seems to spray evenly or in the action it's supposed to do, I get a better coverage with the bottle and easier for my hands to deal with.