Easycares and blowfly

wbow14

Member
How many of you who keep shedders and use a preventative treatment for blowfly?

Also, how Easycare are your easycares? Do you dose with various drenches or simply treat any issues if/when they occur?
 

Poorbuthappy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Devon
Going to depend how much wool they're carrying I guess. I haven't treated many of my few yet - just an odd particularly woolly lamb.
 
My Easycare ewes never get any fly preventative and fly strike on one of them would be a very unusual event. Any lambs in the running for retention in the flock/sale for breeding wouldn't get any either, as if they get struck I don't want them. Fly strike would be slightly more common in them but still nowhere near enough to warrant application of Clik or whatever. Usually a struck lamb has some underlying issue. They would all have long tails as well.

Regarding the rest of the flock health plan, ewes are on the Heptavac-P system and are bolused twice a year for trace elements. Blood and forage tests have shown this is a requirement. No routine worming or footcare for the ewes.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
Lambs all get a dysect here for ticks so that covers maggots as well, only really because a dose of dysect is cheaper than spot on and miles better for ticks.

Full shedder ewes don't get any pour on unless the tick burden is very high.
 

wbow14

Member
Mine don’t have any wool. Just noticed when I rounded them up yesterday a lot of flies around some of them. When you say rest of flock @Woolless, are you still talking about easycares or other breeds. Not many around my part keeping easycares.
 

Tim W

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
My flocks are on 3 different farms this year --1 on the downs at 800ft so very little fly (although a couple of Charollais lambs managed to get struck earlier in the season) , next lot are on water meadows and i picked up a sick ewe (retaining some wool) that needed treating for strike earlier on. Next mob of 300 ewes are in parkland at Stourhead National Trust = lots of lakes & trees and plenty of flies ...150 of these animals had to be treated with Dysect in April for ticks
No other fly preventatives have been used on ewes or lambs this season (yet)
If i go away for a couple of weeks i will probably put a dab of something on lambs tail heads to keep flies at bay/make me feel better /reduce need for my stand in to catch lambs whilst i am away
Other things i treat for ?
Clostridial vaccine is the only routine
Worms if FEC dictates in lambs ---breeding for worm resistance has made a noticeable difference here
Individual treatments on a welfare basis for anything that needs doing
 

wbow14

Member
Thank you all. The messages are quite reassuring. The reason I chose easycares was because of my limited knowledge. Trouble is when you ask people (non-Easycare) for advice, quite often their flocks are very different with very different traits and requirements.
 

Bones

Member
Location
n Ireland
I'm currently running both Woolie and shedding ewes, the woolie sheep have been treated with dysect and still getting the odd one with magots on, so far the untreated shedding ewes haven't got struct, ( so far) , wouldn't be much point treating them as the wool keeps falling of anyway.
 

exmoor dave

Member
Location
exmoor, uk
Thank you all. The messages are quite reassuring. The reason I chose easycares was because of my limited knowledge. Trouble is when you ask people (non-Easycare) for advice, quite often their flocks are very different with very different traits and requirements.


You've just got to get a idea of the blowfly burden on your farm, there's a risk period early in the season if it warms up quickly before the ewes have fully shed and also around October can be dodgy if it stays warm and humid but the ewes are already growing their winter cover
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
My mule and texel ewe lambs have been shorn, the Exlana x’s havnt had any clikzin or any treatments like that. No Exlana whether or entire ram lambs have had clikzin either but all other lambs on the farm (mules, texel and charolais) have had their arses done early on with clikzin and whole body twice and we’re still having problems with sweat spots from the wet and now dry weather.
 

Ysgythan

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ammanford
This thread reminds me of the guy in NZ who put up a photo on Twitter of the tup with the highest EBV in the country for avoiding dags. He got very defensive when I asked him why the ram had been crutched.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
This thread reminds me of the guy in NZ who put up a photo on Twitter of the tup with the highest EBV in the country for avoiding dags. He got very defensive when I asked him why the ram had been crutched.

That’s funny :LOL:

Personally though we arnt putting anything on the Exlana x’s as that’s what their meant to do and we arnt in a tick area so shouldn’t need anything for that..... if i’m to expand the flock and do more by myself as Dad retires then shedders will be the easier way for us to move forward while expanding.
 

pgk

Member
We put 100 easycare ewes to texel tup this time and have treated all half bred lambs with clik extra at same time as first heptavac injection. They all graze very fly prone water meadows. Ewes untreated. no strike yet!
Pure flock all untreated.
Pure texels all had clik extra.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 76 43.2%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 62 35.2%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 28 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.7%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,284
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top