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F LOCK HEALTH
Veterinary Surgeon
Neil Laing
XLVets Practice
Clyde Veterinary
Group
NEIL LAING,
CLYDE VETERINARY GROUP
Keeping Your Farm
Your Fortress
However, there can be a chink in the disease
armour. Away wintering of young lambs,
especially female replacements, is a common
undertaking in many hill farming areas of the
UK. Often there are sheep from more than
one farm grazing on a wintering, or the
wintering is on a different farm each year,
all with potentially different challenges.
There are some important things to remember
when bringing these sheep back that ensure
disease risks within these flocks can be
managed throughout the winter.
Liver fluke
As we know fluke infect cattle and sheep,
but they are also capable of infecting any
mammal - rabbits, deer - making infection
impossible to eliminate. This means that
grazing areas with snail habitats will remain
permanently infected, even if left un-stocked
for several years. Whilst strategic treatment
using flukicides will help control the problem,
long term there will need to be a move
towards preventing infection and reducing
our reliance on medicines, as is happening
with gut worms.
Therefore limiting new infections relies on
preventing access of the grazing animals to
snail habitats, or removing snail habitats from
the farm. It may not have crossed your mind
to find out the fluke status, if known, of the
farm where the sheep are wintering
!
This will allow strategic treatment through the
winter to reduce the burden being brought
home, or the introduction of resistant fluke for
example. Speak to your vet about the most
appropriate times to treat lambs away at the
wintering depending on the risks, and the
best products to use.
As autumn moves on, many sheep farmers are in the process of buying
in replacement stock; thoughts turn to quarantine treatments and
preventing diseases being brought on to farms.
WORKING
TOGETHER
FOR A HEALTHIER FUTURE...
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LIVESTOCK MATTERS
Adult fluke
Liver fluke affect both sheep and cattle