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Controlling the risk of flystrike could include actions such as shearing, crutching, dipping and/or moving sheep to higher ground with cooler temperatures and higher wind speed.
Warm summer weather heightens the risk of flystrike.
However, there are steps farmers can take to make sheep as unattractive to flies as possible this summer.
Will Halliday, Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s senior advisor biosecurity and animal welfare, says the best and most effective approach to preventing flystrike is to use a combination of strategies also known as Integrated Pest Management (IPM).
He says IPM aims to keep pressure on the pest throughout its lifecycle by using a combination of chemical and non-chemical tools.
“It’s about attacking maggots and flies from different angles at different times.”
For example, weekly monitoring for the four blowfly species that cause flystrike (Australian green blowfly, European green blowfly, Brown blowfly and Hairy Maggot blowfly). Using small offal-baited fly-traps will detect when these flies are active which can then trigger a management response.
It could include shearing, crutching, dipping and/or moving sheep to higher ground with cooler temperatures and higher wind speed.
During high-risk periods, intensive grazing should be avoided if possible and hot-spots on the farm identified and avoided. These could include sheltered, scrubby gullies, patches of thistles, bush lines and the lee of shelter-belts.
Chemicals play an important role in the prevention and treatment of flystrike, over-reliance can lead to resistance.
It is important to only use chemicals known to be effective on individual farms and use different chemicals to treat an active flystrike lesion than those used for flystrike prevention.
Halliday adds that the Managing Flystrike and Lice publication put together by Beef + Lamb New Zealand, Merino NZ and Sheep and Beef Cattle Veterinarians explains the lifecycle of pests, helps decipher chemical product labels and applications.
“It is an excellent resource to help farmers put together a management plan for the prevention and treatment of both flystrike and lice.”
Preventing Flystrike
Solid biosecurity practices, regular monitoring and timely vaccination are the three key pillars of effective Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) control on New Zealand farms. Zoetis veterinary technical advisor, Karley DeFrees, explains BVD is a costly but preventative disease that impacts a significant number of dairy farms in New Zealand. Implementation of a BVD control plan can help protect your herd from this avoidable disease.
Although preventable, lamb loss from clostridial diseases during the first year of life on New Zealand hill country farms continues to be an issue. A field trial, where lambs were vaccinated at docking and weaning, demonstrated that vaccination was highly effective, lowering clostridial deaths by 23%. Zoetis veterinarian Dr Victoria Chapman unpacks the importance of robust animal health programmes, vaccination timing and the potential harmful consequences for stock when vaccination isn't given.
Bovine Viral Diarrhoea (BVD) is estimated to cost New Zealand's dairy and beef industries more than $150 million every year, yet many of the tools needed to control it are already well understood. After more than 25 years in veterinary practice, Andrew Weir, animal health technical specialist at LIC, has seen firsthand the impact BVD can have on herd performance. We asked him about the role of persistently infected (PI) animals and the practical steps farmers can take to reduce their risk.
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