[thenovice]

seems like worm drench is becoming a swear word, Surely its a vital part of the sheep keepers armoury. Im not advocating worm every 3 weeks regardless, but drenching your flock before it moves onto fresh pasture can only be a good thing, prevention is better than cure. This time of year, and esp as it starts to get warmer, seeing your girls with scour and risking strike, is not the best way of deciding its time to treat. FECs are great, as is making sure you give the correct dose for size of sheep, but lets not frighten new/novice flock keepers away from common sense worming

[Alicenz]

I agree, but regarding the cough in the other forum I suggested other things it could be as well assuming because you suggested drenching it would be looked into straight away.  There is nothing worse then driving around the country side seeing animals I know need a drench desperately or need antibiotics desperately.  I  believe in regularly drenching while young and then as my vet recommends drenching those that need it, if one looks closely you can tell well before they get the scours. As you say it is better to be safe then sorry

[Bionic]

I'm not quite sure I get your point here. I also don't understand about drenching before moving onto fresh pasture.
As a newbie to sheep (got mine last year) I have been following the latest thinking with regards to wormers i.e. get a FEC done and then worm if necessary, but if you do worm then put them back on dirty pasture at first ( I think its for 48 hours but don't quote me on that as I need to look it up again) so that they get the chance to offload their worm burden before they go onto clean pasture.
Do you think this is wrong?

[thenovice]

No offence intended, my comments were not directed at you. Its something that's been bugging me for a while now, so just put it out there 

[thenovice]

In an ideal world you should pen them up for 24 hours with hay to eat. But that's an ideal world

[jaykay]

The advice now is to put them back onto dirty land for a couple of days, in order that they pick up worms,

I know that sounds strange but the point is this.

No wormer kills all worms. When you put sheep who have just been wormed onto clean pasture the worms that are in them are resistant worms and so that's what they put onto the pasture. The resistant worms have no competition from any other worms so they have the sheep to themselves. They have a great time, multiply madly and there you go (well after several repeats of this) a resistant worm population.

If you put recently wormed sheep back onto dirty pasture, they will up a selection of worms, most of which will be susceptible to wormers, some of which will be resistant. The susceptible worms will compete for 'sheep gut space and nutrients' with the resistant worms, keeping the resistant worms in their place, as part of the worm population but not the whole of it.

What's the point of worming at all you might ask. Well, you reduce the numbers by killing lots, and that's what sheep who are scouring need - reduced numbers.

As for not worming every 3 weeks - in certain conditions, in lambs, against Nematodirus, that's what's needed. By the time you see symptoms in this instance, you can have dead lambs.

I find the NADIS forecasts very useful in deciding what needs doing.

[Alicenz]

Thanks, I was a bit surprised! Sorry i took it that way!

Re Bionic - hmm I hope  novice can make it understandable, i think you have it right. Im a bit haphazard with movement on my land as they get moved often on my property due to shelter requirements.

Over drenching is not good either.

Drenching  regularly  is really important in young sheep, if they are not regularly drenched they get a very heavy burden and become stunted and sickly, scours etc, unless one has a breed that is specifically bred for organic methods.  Most breeds in NZ dont cope without drenching in their first year. 

As they get older the amount of drenching should become less, but a sharp eye needs to be kept out for any loss of condition, bloating (not bloat) and beginning of any scouring (it should be caught before that stage).  Short grass also means worm eggs will be picked up more easily.

[SteveHants]

Common sense worming is worming to regular FECS as far as I am concerned - Routine worming is not common sense at all, given rising levels of athelintic resistant worms etc.

[Fleecewife]

Jaykay - that was very well explained, thank you  .  It was the Mordun Research Institute which first devised this method of slowing the proliferation of wormer resistant worms in farm livestock, after extensive research here in Scotland.  If you really think about it you will see that THIS is the 'common sense' approach, as SteveHants says.
 
What is not intended is for sheep keepers not to worm at all, but to time their wormings, and which wormer to use, judiciously, based on careful observation and FECs.  It also recognises that mature sheep are resistant to the effect of worms to some degree (note - resistant to the effects of worms, not having worm resistance to wormers - two very different things)
 
It is also acknowledged that those who husband sheep on a large scale, especially in hill country, can't just pick out those animals which need worming on any particular day.  Even just rounding them up is a major task - but I think these type of sheep are brought in less often and may well go back onto the same ground anyway.

[lachlanandmarcus]

Common sense worming is worming to regular FECS as far as I am concerned - Routine worming is not common sense at all, given rising levels of athelintic resistant worms etc.

This, and back on old pasture or penned for a day or two before then moving to fresh ground.


Have never wormed anything until one dose this year based on FEC suggesting it was needed, and have never had anything sickly from worms. I think routine worming makes us feel better as no one can criticise us for not doing 'what we should' but this approach is biting us on the backside now as it has led to increasing resistance and running out of wormers to use. unlike with horses we are lucky enough to have a couple of new sheep wormer active ingredients but these are expensive and also mustn't be squandered,


What is bad management is neither worming nor testing for worms and fluke, or testing and then not worming if it is required.


NB our recent lab test for fluke which came back negative and which I was worried about the cost for given some other posts ended up costing £26 which although not great, is at least less than I feared and a lot less than the £50 someone on here was charged.

[thenovice]

Hmmmmm, not sure I get the point of worming and then putting them back intentionally. When the sheep then moves onto fresh pasture she comes with an increased level of parasites inside her, deposits more eggs and quicker on the fresh grass, and then needs treating sooner. I can see what you are trying to say, but why spread parasites onto new ground. Is it worth losing stock or making it suffer, just because you don't want to medicate. Large commercial flocks and hobby flocks are 2 separate things, you cant treat them both the same way, esp if you are just starting out.

[lachlanandmarcus]

Because if you move them straight away and you are using a standard wormer (not the new orange kings ransom costing one) then there will likely be some resistant worms that survive the worming. Put your sheep on new pasture and they will be expelled onto clean ground and multiply. every single one of the offspring will be wormer resistant. Welcome to your new pasture, now full of worms that your wormer wont work on.
By making the resistant worms be expelled on the old ground which is to be rested, it means those resistant worms will be breeding with normal ones and the offspring wont be wormer resistant.
Your method will still spread parasites onto the new clean ground, you are deluding yourself if you think the wormer will kill every worm in every one of your sheep.  But all the ones you will be spreading will be wormer resistant, the other method now recommended by researchers will minimise worm burdens but perhaps more importantly, minimise wormer resistance.Otherwise, it will become irrelevant what you drench with and when, it will cease to have any beneficial effect.
I do take issue I have to say with the 'just because you don't want to medicate' statement. I am completely happy to medicate, but to do so carefully and when appropriate. I have never lost a sheep or lamb to worms.  To me, any other approach is lazy tick box management which, in the long term, will cause much more animal suffering and losses, just as the overuse of antibiotics will as we will lose their effectiveness to enable us to use them when they are needed. 
This article is an excellent explanation of why the 'old ways' have done sheep no favours and why a new approach must be adopted
http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/livestock/livestock-features/beating-anthelmintic-resistance-in-sheep-worming-regimes/45125.article

 
 

[thenovice]

-post removed-


it is ok to discuss subjects openly but not act in any way that is likely to cause offence to others.


Regards
Bloomer

[gulli]

Hmmmmm, not sure I get the point of worming and then putting them back intentionally. When the sheep then moves onto fresh pasture she comes with an increased level of parasites inside her, deposits more eggs and quicker on the fresh grass, and then needs treating sooner. I can see what you are trying to say, but why spread parasites onto new ground. Is it worth losing stock or making it suffer, just because you don't want to medicate. Large commercial flocks and hobby flocks are 2 separate things, you cant treat them both the same way, esp if you are just starting out.

all you are doing by putting them on fresh pasture is increasing the % of resistant worms on that paddock, current advice is as said to move to dirty pasture or leave a %of the flock undrenched in order to increase the % of susceptible worms shed onto the pasture, slowing resistance build up.
at £10-15 a time at the vets why not egg count, you will save yourself that in wormer if you drench as a precaution

[thenovice]

I agree, and I do. Egg counts are a good thing. Hang on a mo, what I said was meant tongue in cheek, hence the grin? I never intend to offend, and if its taken that way, I am sorry. But what happened to debate, banter, and freedom of speech??? Didn't realise we were running on BBC guidelines! Am I not entitled to my own opinion anymore