Post dipping thrive

I was wondering if they can absorb the op through the skin

that's interesting.
I wouldn't have believed it was possible to dose sheep with OP if I hadn't seen in first hand.

They had 10 litre drums that where about a 1/4 to 1/3 full of a OP powder and they filled them up with a white /yellow wormer combination.
It was important not to go over the recommend dose, if you did the sheep might make it out the race but it wouldn't make it out the pens.
They had enough in the corner of a shed to make up over a hundred litres so they had quite a few to do.
 
Sheep get a lift from dipping even if they don't have obvious scab or lice because it cleans all the cr*p off them. Wool will build up all sorts of dirt from flies etc. If they do have scab or even a low level lice infection the affect of dipping is immediate whereas injecting still leaves the dead lice/mites, flaky skin and cr*p. It must be like coming in sweaty and mucky and having a good shower, you feel better straightaway.

With the growing amount of scab around it's no wonder dipping contractors can't keep pace with demand. Scab should be a reportable disease and those who have it should have to dip.
 

Jonp

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Gwent
Ideally, you don’t want to stress them in the 3 weeks after tupping (so 5-6 weeks from the date the tups go in?).
If they have scab now then better done now than leave them 2 months I suspect. Or maybe you’re just dipping them for the fun of covering everything in a nerve agent anyway?
Don't have scab at the moment but last year had a lice attack about a month before lambing. Run a closed flock with no other sheep for miles around me. Couldn't work out where it came from. Tups live in cattle winter paddock some miles away with no other sheep around...maybe came from there? New tup this year was quarantined, then all tups were wormed. dysected and had a shot of dectomax. Enquiring about dipping as ewes will go out on winter tack in November and that maybe is where they could pick up lice or mites (still in fields with no other sheep around)
Had to cydectin everything last year as no dectomax about.
Very difficult access to home farm so dipper wagon would struggle to get in an need options. Any thoughts?
 

egbert

Member
Livestock Farmer
Don't have scab at the moment but last year had a lice attack about a month before lambing. Run a closed flock with no other sheep for miles around me. Couldn't work out where it came from. Tups live in cattle winter paddock some miles away with no other sheep around...maybe came from there? New tup this year was quarantined, then all tups were wormed. dysected and had a shot of dectomax. Enquiring about dipping as ewes will go out on winter tack in November and that maybe is where they could pick up lice or mites (still in fields with no other sheep around)
Had to cydectin everything last year as no dectomax about.
Very difficult access to home farm so dipper wagon would struggle to get in an need options. Any thoughts?
Unless there are pressing reasons not to do so...put your own dip in, go on the course, do then before tupping every year.
(or possibly at height of fly season if that works better..... i'm going off hill conditions where flies are less of a bother, and communal gathering period is autumnal)

keep ivomectin drugs for worming.....

How do lice/scab mites move without close ovine contact?
Good question, although I've always been suspicious of corvids going from farm to farm when sheep are being trough fed.
We've watched them learn routines of neighbouring farmers......and it only takes a bit of wool picked up in one place and dropped at the next.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Don't have scab at the moment but last year had a lice attack about a month before lambing. Run a closed flock with no other sheep for miles around me. Couldn't work out where it came from. Tups live in cattle winter paddock some miles away with no other sheep around...maybe came from there? New tup this year was quarantined, then all tups were wormed. dysected and had a shot of dectomax. Enquiring about dipping as ewes will go out on winter tack in November and that maybe is where they could pick up lice or mites (still in fields with no other sheep around)
Had to cydectin everything last year as no dectomax about.
Very difficult access to home farm so dipper wagon would struggle to get in an need options. Any thoughts?
Was it lice or scab? Ewes or ewe lambs?
 

Jonp

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Gwent
Was it lice or scab? Ewes or ewe lambs?
Was in ewes but not all. No scabs but lots of itching and some wool loss on maybe 15% of ewes.
Not sure whether lice or scab so treated for both. Need to up my game this year as not knowing is a bit dull..and costly to both me and my sheep. Will look into building my own dip and go on course.
If I see itching in the meantime what should I do? Skin scrape/bloods? Advice appreciated....still learning.
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Does anyone know if putting a dipping tank in for the first time, how much the EA licenses cost, or what the most cost effective way is to deal with waste dip?
I have a dipping certificate

I was reading a bit about dipping regs in the NFU Cymru mag last night. It looked very much like the disposal regs are different in England, Wales and Scotland. Something about an EA licence needed in England, but 'follow guidance' on land disposal in Wales & Scotland?
 

neilo

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Montgomeryshire
Was in ewes but not all. No scabs but lots of itching and some wool loss on maybe 15% of ewes.
Not sure whether lice or scab so treated for both. Need to up my game this year as not knowing is a bit dull..and costly to both me and my sheep. Will look into building my own dip and go on course.
If I see itching in the meantime what should I do? Skin scrape/bloods? Advice appreciated....still learning.

Vet can do a pen side test for scab now iirc, or take a skin scrape and do it the old fashioned way. Vet needed to get a definitive diagnosis though.

If you (presumably) have a Welsh holding number, the window for registering for training with Farming Connect is open currently I think. You can get 80% subsidised training courses that way, so the certificate won't cost you much more than your time. It only needs doing once so I'd get on with it this winter while FC is still doing it, even if you don't get a dip put in yet. (y)
 
I was reading a bit about dipping regs in the NFU Cymru mag last night. It looked very much like the disposal regs are different in England, Wales and Scotland. Something about an EA licence needed in England, but 'follow guidance' on land disposal in Wales & Scotland?
I've been told various things by different people but I couldn't find a straightforward list of charges on the the EA web site. Somebody told me it was over £2000 to apply and around £900 pa thereafter. Seems prohibitively high and meanwhile scab gets worse and worse.

I've had a mobile dipper in but our sheep are in different places and largely groups are kept separate.
 

Crex

Member
Location
Innse Gall, Alba
You definitely need a disposal licence in Scotland. We've just got our bill through from SEPA, £90 for one site. We've had that since it started, supposed to be quite expensive if you apply for a new one, but don't know how much.
 

sheepwise

Member
Location
SW Scotland
Sheep get a lift from dipping even if they don't have obvious scab or lice because it cleans all the cr*p off them. Wool will build up all sorts of dirt from flies etc. If they do have scab or even a low level lice infection the affect of dipping is immediate whereas injecting still leaves the dead lice/mites, flaky skin and cr*p. It must be like coming in sweaty and mucky and having a good shower, you feel better straightaway.

With the growing amount of scab around it's no wonder dipping contractors can't keep pace with demand. Scab should be a reportable disease and those who have it should have to dip.
Scab is a notifiable disease.
 

sheepwise

Member
Location
SW Scotland
I was reading a bit about dipping regs in the NFU Cymru mag last night. It looked very much like the disposal regs are different in England, Wales and Scotland. Something about an EA licence needed in England, but 'follow guidance' on land disposal in Wales & Scotland?
Need a disposal licence in Scotland with designated land to spread on. Have to keep records of volumes and dates spread and pay annual fee to SEPA for the privilege.
 

sheepwise

Member
Location
SW Scotland
Because scab is notifiable, if your vet takes blood or scrape samples from your sheep which prove to be positive, then animal health has to be informed. This then results in a farm visit or at least phone call from animal health vets. This in itself unfortunately puts many off getting a proper diagnosis done. Therefore, sheep are often treated for lice in the first instance, which allows the scab to spread to all the neighbours.
 

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