C.A.H.L.
- YOUR PARTNER IN ANIMAL HEALTH
FLUKE
For sheep
farmers, parasites like worms, liver fluke and coccidia are part of
life. Uncontrolled they can have a devastating effect - reducing your
animal's productivity and your income. Thankfully the availability of
effective drugs these days means that we can limit the damage. However,
the very fact that these drugs are so easy to obtain and use can create
its own problems.
Take wormers
for instance. Wormers are often viewed as the 'great cure-all', yet
many different factors can cause scouring and loss of thrive - coccidiosis,
bacterial infections and dietary imbalances - and it's vital to identify
the real problem before you try to solve it.
If fluke
and worms are the root of the problem, a poor response to treatment
is not necessarily down to a problem with the drug. All too often animals
are treated and then returned to the same heavily infected pastures,
whereupon they are immediately reinfected - but it is the husbandry
practices that have failed, not the drug. Unfortunately, good husbandry
and pasture management practices are often a casualty of the success
of modern drugs, the 'quick fix' treatment being easier than the planning
required to provide safe pastures.
The large
number of different wormers, flukicides and combined fluke and wormers
for sale can also create problems, with farmers occasionally buying
a product which is not suitable for the job. This is a waste of time
and money and potentially disastrous. Always check the packaging to
see if the drug is really suitable for your needs.
The major
threat to the continued success of antiparasitic drugs is the emergence
of strains of fluke and worms that are no longer susceptible to some
of the drugs. Drug resistant worms are a problem in some parts of the
world, with drug resistance in liver flukes posing the greatest risk
to the sheep industry in Ireland. Too-frequent dosing, underdosing and
prolonged use of the same closely related drugs have been implicated
in the emergence of resistance, so don't just pick a box off the shelf
or use a product because you always have ! It's important to follow
the manufacturers instructions carefully and to use grazing management
to cut down on dosing. It is also wise to rotate your worm drugs on
a yearly basis and your fluke drug every two years - ask your vet for
specific advice.
