Chez
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Tapeworm in sheepApparently Ivermectin doesn't work with tapeworm in sheep. Ma has been advised by the vet to dose them with cobalt. I am going to shift some of the hens to run in with them and hopefully help to keep the worm-load down. They have been on the same ground for a while and it hasn't had a chance to rest - the vet has said that they should be wormed every three weeks because of that.
Any advice or alternatives to add, anyone?
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dpack
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treat the sheep and rotate the land
pm sent
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Chez
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PM answered - thank you, dpack.
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Rob R
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Re: Tapeworm in sheep | Chez wrote: | They have been on the same ground for a while and it hasn't had a chance to rest - the vet has said that they should be wormed every three weeks because of that.
Any advice or alternatives to add, anyone? |
Perhaps the PM already mentions this, but I would disagree with the vets advice here- it sounds like the perfect scenario to increase worm resistance on the land that, given the importance this is now gaining in the industry, I am surprised the vet would advise as such.
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Chez
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That's kind of what I thought ...
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dpack
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we do loathe vermin 
treat ,rotate,treat land during rotation (i cant remember which critters would be best to clear sheep tapes first ,rob has the vermin books
maybe chooks then pigs ?)maybe fallow for a bit ,pends on long term viability of the worm egg packages
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Rob R
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The books are up in the 'office' but I would significantly reduce numbers with cattle/chooks, but if they are not practical, chooks, pigs, chooks.
Maybe need to be a bit more specific on the tape in question (latin name), if I am to dig out the books...
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Chez
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Will ask for more info, thanks chaps.
Pigs are out, apparently 
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Ixy
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sounds totally bonkers to ever be worming every three weeks 
one question - is the vet selling the wormer?
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Barefoot Andrew
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| Ixy wrote: | | one question - is the vet selling the wormer? |
That's a healthy Rob-esque level of scepticism 
A.
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Ixy
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| Barefoot Andrew wrote: | | Ixy wrote: | | one question - is the vet selling the wormer? |
That's a healthy Rob-esque level of scepticism
A. |
Ach it was there all along...
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Chez
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| Ixy wrote: | | one question - is the vet selling the wormer? |
No, Mole Valley apparently.
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mihto
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Albendazol (Valbazen) or Fenbedazol (Panacur). No idea if it is called the same in GB. Check for resistance in the area.
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SheepShed
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Praziquantel is the most effective for the common tapeworm (Moniezia expansa) but I think this is only on ticket for horses in the UK (and dogs - this is what is in Drontal) . Albendazol (Valbazen) is the next best thing.
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Green Rosie
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| dpack wrote: | treat the sheep and rotate the land
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So what is the ideal time to leave a field sheep-free?
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sean
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| Green Rosie wrote: |
So what is the ideal time to leave a field sheep-free? |
For ever pretty much, there's no money in them and they're really keen on dieing.
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Rob R
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At the moment there's quite a bit of money in them.
The other bit is about right though, the 'best' time is several years between, but practically 12 consecutive months in 24 works well.
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Mutton
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Our own vets comments on worming was that in wet summers worms are a lot worse and you might need to do as often as monthly in very wet summers.
Glad to hear about chickens eating the worms. Most of the chickens are currently working over the cut hay meadow (yay we had a good hay crop in the three dry days in August) and there are two that follow our sheep flock around (not in the hay meadow) - stop to preen when the sheep stop to ruminate. Young cockerels from this year's hatching, was already deciding to leave them alive for the time being from the entertainment factor, now got a good farming reason too. 
Heck, the more I watch our farm animals, the more I can see African wild life patterns in their behaviour - as in the tick birds and the like.
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SheepShed
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| Mutton wrote: | | Heck, the more I watch our farm animals, the more I can see African wild life patterns in their behaviour - as in the tick birds and the like. |
Yes, seeing magpies sitting on the backs of ewes isn't that uncommon. Not quite an oxpecker sitting on a rhino, but it only takes a bit of imagination to turn Wales into the Serengeti
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Mutton
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Our biggest Soay ewe was nicknamed the Wilderbeest. Had that hump backed hairy profile.
When we got our landrover, tried to train the tabby cat to recline on the roof like a leopard - but he wouldn't.
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Ixy
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If there is local resistance, then what?
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mihto
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| Ixy wrote: | | If there is local resistance, then what? |
Good question. You use medication of a differnt group for three years. Then swith to a third group. Then back to number one......
Sounds easy? If we only had more than one or two groups.
Parasites do develop resistance for different reasons. Working with parasites can really land you in shit.
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Ixy
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That's why I prefer prevention and going with the flow of nature...with a lil' help from surfactants if we muck up...
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mihto
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| Ixy wrote: | | That's why I prefer prevention and going with the flow of nature...with a lil' help from surfactants if we muck up... |
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colour it green
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the vet told us that the fluke wont develop a resistance to flukicides.. just worms can to their treatments. dunno if this is right though.
He also gave the opinion that some sheep are more prone to picking up/ reacting to worms and they should be culled out of the flock - so as well as good land management, you can try to have a tough flock.
land management is difficult when you only have a couple of acres though.. and not enough room for cows...
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Rob R
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| colour it green wrote: | | the vet told us that the fluke wont develop a resistance to flukicides.. just worms can to their treatments. dunno if this is right though. |
Absolute tosh. It's not as common in the UK as worm resistance at the moment but they can and will develop resistance. The idea that we can continue to use anthelmintics wrecklessly and continuously seems quite common among qualified vets in this country which is both worrying and perplexing.
| colour it green wrote: | | He also gave the opinion that some sheep are more prone to picking up/ reacting to worms and they should be culled out of the flock - so as well as good land management, you can try to have a tough flock. |
That is exactly right.
The problem comes if you use anthelmintics routinely then the ones you want to cull out of the flock are much harder to identify and a constant wipe out of all worms (if you're lucky) in an animals system can make them more susceptible to picking up more virulent species/strains of worms that then go on to cause serious disease.
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Ixy
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on small acreages it's even more vital to rotate the land 3 cows on a mountain won't build up worms etc. as quick as the same in a 3 acre field.
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colour it green
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| Ixy wrote: | | on small acreages it's even more vital to rotate the land 3 cows on a mountain won't build up worms etc. as quick as the same in a 3 acre field. |
yeh my point was we dont really have the room for 1 cow.. only a few sheep, so we cant go into mixed grazing.
we have our fields divided into 3, and we rotate and rest as best as we can. we use a flukicide and wormer approx once a year. ish
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Mutton
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The other thing to remember is not all runny bottoms are down to worms. Doing, or having the vet do faecals, is a good idea.
We have two unrelated runny bottom ewes.
One we bought when middle aged. It is worst when the grass is wet, goes away completely when suckling lambs. The vet thinks she has liver damage from some poison in the past that we don't know about.
The other one we've had from lamb, have her mother and sisters in the flock all of whom are fine. Most likely cause is eating too much rough stuff, we understand. As in has a liking for nibbling on gorse, twigs etc and the excess roughage is upsetting her internal balance.
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arvo
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So is the Ixy-RobR-dpack advice, broadly - stick something else on some of the land after rotating the sheep off (chooks preferably) and they'll eat the eggs?
Then rotate?
And add Ecover (other brands of surfactant are available) if it gets bad?
Is there any other old-school tapeworm deterrent, since tapeworm have been around for as log as sheep have?
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Rob R
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Well I had asked for more specific info on the type of tapeworm we are talking about (there are about five main ones affecting sheep and goats) as most are not highly pathogenic and the presence of them in the faeces may not be a cause for concern. Other than that, anything that makes life hostile for the parasite is a positive step.
I tend to keep anthelmintics as the holy grail of parasite control- the thing you keep in a glass case with 'smash glass in case of emergency' when you have really made a mess of your animal husbandry and need something that stops your animals suffering the effects of the disease (happens to everyone). Given that most people use them routinely I might be wasting my time (it's a bit like all us cutting back on oil use while the rest of the country drives Range Rovers) but I'd rather die having tried to show that there is a different way than just roll over and go with the flow.
Anyway, back to making it hostile for the worms- worm eggs (and worms) don't like the effect of sunlight or drying, so chickens tend to scratch up and expose as many as they actually eat, similar with pigs, but poultry are obviously more pasture friendly . Cattle eat the foliage, up which the sheep parasites have crawled to await a hungry sheep, so by ingesting them [the cows] the sheep-specific worms are killed and the numbers reduced.
Surfactants (I personally would stick to Ecover or the US version Basic H, as the biodegradeability of most products are not as good) make water more utilisable for the animal (or the plant, in the case of foliar surfactants) but for the parasite it makes life harder as water tension is an important part of their protective mucous membranes (hence why drying out is not good for them).
A good herby pasture is by far preferable to a straight grass/grass-clover one. Chicory has anthelmintic properties and some organic farms sow a strip around the outside of all their sheep pastures. Plantains are another good inclusion, sheeps sorrel, etc.
Sorry, I bet you were hoping for a short answer
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arvo
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This is probably another of my dumb townie questions but here goes anyway! Do the chickens knacker the grass in the area they're scratching up? Or does the grass just recover after a certain time? And in your set up you've got quite a lot of ground to swap over, do you think the system would work on a smaller scale (couple of acres of pasture)? I guess you'd have to be particularly careful of stocking levels?
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Ixy
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Well, dunno about them two but here's what I'd do:
1: The sheep actually do have tapeworms, and I personally don't mind using wormers in the case of an actual outbreak - if this is bad I would worm them with the new wormer suggested by the vet - ONCE. Then pretty much straightaway take them off the infected pasture and leave behind the worms.
2: Put the clean sheep onto clean pasture, or even indoors/a yard if I had to until some alternative was sorted out?
3: Give a garlic supplement, and ACV on a routine basis - ACV creates a good environment for goodstuff in our innards which thus creates a hostile environment for badstuff. Garlic just repels nasties in general
4: Leave the existing 'dirty' land fallow, or use other livestock on it until all the tapeworm lifecycle is broken. From then on, remember to rotate and let the animals deal with any small numbers of worms present. If they are exposed to the parasites, their bodies will 'keep up' with worm developments; like warfare in the guts of a sheep. If you constantly worm, they never get exposed to worms and then when worms become resistant or too numerous, they have no defence. Use ecover in the case of an actual worm break-out and it should be enough to give the livestock the edge over the worms.
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Ixy
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| arvo wrote: | | This is probably another of my dumb townie questions but here goes anyway! Do the chickens knacker the grass in the area they're scratching up? Or does the grass just recover after a certain time? And in your set up you've got quite a lot of ground to swap over, do you think the system would work on a smaller scale (couple of acres of pasture)? I guess you'd have to be particularly careful of stocking levels? |
It's even more important on small acreages. If the chickens are completely knackering the grass, there's too many. I personally think one of the failings of the chookmobile (apart from ventilation) is that the chickens aren't controlled - they go where they want and as such have favoured spots and miss cowpats etc. we have 7 down on the yard today as they have been all week rather than gettin on with their job  If I had my way, they'd be contained: in a canopy roost behind electric fencing, and would be moved more frequently to follow the cattle exactly four days behind, which is apparently the optimum time to clear up emerging pests, and stop them using the same patches too much.
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Rob R
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| arvo wrote: | | This is probably another of my dumb townie questions but here goes anyway! Do the chickens knacker the grass in the area they're scratching up? Or does the grass just recover after a certain time? And in your set up you've got quite a lot of ground to swap over, do you think the system would work on a smaller scale (couple of acres of pasture)? I guess you'd have to be particularly careful of stocking levels? |
Not a dumb question at all. It all depends on the number of birds and the time they are on the land. For a certain period the birds are being beneficial to the grass- after that time they start to be deterimental- it's a bit like chain harrowing; once over is good, five times is probably overkill.
The problem with the chookmobile (to which Ixy refers) is mainly down to them not being moved often enough (so they get more confident about where 'home' is and venture further) and not having the protein element feed in the 'home' so they prefer to get easier pickings round the yard and compost heap. The former is rather dependant upon when dpack is here to tend to them and the latter is in and when he returns. Moving electric netting is also rather labour intensive for daily or even twice weekly moves, compared to moving the two strand cattle fence. I think a more 'scratchy' breed of birds would be a vast improvement on the ex-free range hybrids we have (as dpack was convinced we had a fox problem I got the hybrids to test the hardware- the chookmobile certainly needs several internal improvements if it is to work labour efficiently- vents, perches, nest boxes and feeders). Ixy's game birds are significantly 'scratchier', and something with that kind of foraging ability would be far preferable to hybrids which just expect a meal to be placed before them.
The things that have worked very well with the chookmobile concept are the doors [the auto door opening & closing on a light sensor] the winch for moving it (which doesn't drain the battery as much as I thought it would) and the solar powered electric fence [attached to the chookmobile to protect against cattle-rubbing, and the fox if it tried to climb through the windows which are currently acting as the vents].
Ideally we would subdivide the grazing more to make daily moves easier but that is rather expensive in terms of new hedges and fences, and we're also bound by the terms of the Countryside Stewardship Agreement to maintain and keep the 'traditional' boundaries (which helped pay for the boundary restoration we have done). Some of the work was completed before we started rotational grazing, and we're having to work within the constraints of decisions made in the past (in particular, the water supply). The set up we have would work more easily with about 3 times as much land [on this site] and animals, but it is perfectly scaleable down to less than an acre, if planned out from the beginning. Moving birds in fixed pens daily would certainly be easier on a small scale than it would be here.
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Mutton
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Glad to hear about sheep sorrel and plantain being anti-worm - we've got plenty of those and the sheep adore the sorrel in particular.
Ecover - not really understood this bit of the thread properly Is this a squirt of neat Ecover into the sheep in place of wormer?
Putting it in the water bucket?
Or spraying it on the ground?
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Rob R
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| Mutton wrote: | Ecover - not really understood this bit of the thread properly Is this a squirt of neat Ecover into the sheep in place of wormer?
Putting it in the water bucket?
Or spraying it on the ground? |
Sorry, yes, there are some very important caveats with the surfactant method that comes from the beyond organic movement in the US (I first read about it in Joel Salatin's Salad Bar Beef, using the Basic H soap from Shaklee in the US,). ONLY use the washing up liquid, not any other product of the same brand. Mix it with the drinking water at a rate of 1ml per 10 litres, although too much will not harm, it can make the water less palatable. Don't allow access to other water or refill the water with fresh water for two days (refill with surfactant + water at the above rate if necessary) to ensure every animal takes a drink. With sheep it is best if they are inside or on not so lush pasture at the time to ensure they drink, cattle, sheep and pigs are easier in that respect
Unlike the anthelmintic worming methods, I am happy to apply follow the same regime for myself, and anyone considering following this method should be the same IMHO.
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