[ThomasR]

Hi I keep geting worm problems after i have wormed my sheep so I have ben looking the wormers and am amzed at how many there are and was wondeing what people have found best. I have been using endospec and endofluke but someone mentioned to mee the other day that they were not perticuarly good wormers. All help appreciated.

[Crbecky10]

Have you asked a vet about it, if you've had a problem after worming? Could be a sign of resistance to your wormer.

[shep53]

 Have a look at Eblex Better Returns     go into health and nutrition and look at manual 8 on worms .   

[Melmarsh]

Personally I think a lot of things can go wrong with worming for the following reasons
1 Do you weigh and worm to the heaviest sheep ?
2 Do you take feacal samples to the vet for wormegg counts and then take advice on which wormer to use
3 Do you change your wormer as how often
Or do you just buy a wormer over the counter and worm and lib.
Speak to your vet and between you work out an annual plan for worming as there are lots of different worms and thus wormers on the market.
Good Luck   

[Hellybee]

Speak to your vet, get faecal test done, and discuss from there.

[Dan]

We had an excellent session at the recent Scottish Smallholder Conference from Caroline Robinson on worming, you can see it here:

http://ssgf.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/1-worming.pdf

One of the main lessons is that there are 5 families of wormers each with a different active ingredient, and these are completely unrelated to brand names. 2 of these can only be prescribed by a vet.

You should be rotating your worming programme each year to use a different family to avoid resistance.

(Probably best discussed with your vet too.)

[devonlad]

another vote for checking with the vet. we spent our first couple of years drenching with whatever came to hand and ignoring fluke altogether, which is far more of a worry round here. now ring the vet, talk it through, occasional stool samples just to check and as others have said important to vary it a bit and not just assume wormer is wormer- found this out on TAS, funnily enough

[ThomasR]

Ok will do thanks. I know this is compleatly of topic but do any of you use lammacs? I have thought that they are silly pathetic things but then someone mentioned that hey repell foxes and am just interested if anybody would recomend the little red coats?

[ThomasR]

And also when and why woud you use combivit?

[Tim W]

Combivit? Use it when you know your animals are deficient in minerals

I have been hassling my customers for the last 12 years to use FEC before they drench sheep....I am now upping the message and trying to get them to FEC after drenching sheep too. That way they will find out just what resistance problems they have

[Welshcob]

Combivit is a mix of group B vitamins. Won't help if sheep are lacking selenium, copper, iodine or other minerals (for which there are boluses or drenches), but only if they have been diagnosed with vit. B12 deficiency which is cobalt dependent - or you think they might have.

There is also another disease of ruminants caused by lack of vitamin B1 which has a complex name (cerebro-cortical necrosis or CCN or PEM for polyo encephalo malacya). It means their brain cortex is going bad and they show neurological signs very much like listeriosis. Combivit IV or IM can help for these cases, or if in doubt just give it to them anyway, it's cheap and can't do any harm being only vitamins.
I also often recommend it for sheep with fluke, as can help the liver to recover if damaged by the parasites.

[Hellybee]

Heat post welsh cob.  All I can add thiamine = b1

[ThomasR]

Thanks it's justr that I asked the vet to make me up a lambing box and wasnt sure what that was along with kotosaid but figured that one out now.

[Me]

Combivit....can't do any harm being only vitamins.

You have clearly never spilt it in your car - stinks on a hot day!

[Buttermilk]

Combivit....can't do any harm being only vitamins.

You have clearly never spilt it in your car - stinks on a hot day!

Pongs on a cold day too.