2021 March

The Australian sheep blowfly, Lucilia cuprina, initiates over 90% of all flystrike in the Australian flock. Other fly species will strike sheep but only in small numbers and do not escalate into fly waves. Find out more.

Under no circumstance should products be mixed or label rates altered in an attempt to improve the effectiveness of lice control. There are many different effective products from a number of different chemical groups currently available on the market. Mixing chemicals or increasing rates will not make up for a failure in lice biosecurity or inadequacies in application technique. How a product is formulated,(i.e. the active and whatever else is in the product to make it stable and effective) is incredibly important and each product can have quite different formulations and therefore they can be incompatible if mixed.

Sheep that are resistant to worms can prevent some or all worms from establishing and as a result have lower worm egg counts. Sheep that are resilient to worms can grow and produce with less ill effects from worms. Find out more about breeding for these traits.

• These goats were not drenched when the rest of the herd were, so their worm egg count is a lot higher
• These goats are suffering from some other illness or injury that has reduced their immunity
• These goats are the most susceptible in the mob because of lower worm-resistance
• These goats are not actually affected by worms at all. Instead, anaemia could be the result of liver fluke and scouring could be from coccidiosis or excess lush feed.

In all of the above situations, a WormTest on the remainder of the herd (don't include these badly affected goats) to determine the worm egg count will inform your decision of whether to treat the rest of the herd.