Five steps to improving parasite control in cattle

With cattle housed on many farms, thought should be turning to animal health.

Once indoors, cattle will no longer be exposed to internal parasites, such as lungworms, stomach worms or fluke.

As such, where cattle are correctly treated for these parasites, then there should be a high kill rate after animals are dosed.

Make sure to treat cattle for external parasites also. Lice can cause severe skin irritation in animals and liveweight gain will quickly drop. Clipping cattle at housing will improve the efficacy of any pour treatment used.

Listed are five steps to making best use of products used to control internal parasites, giving you healthier animals that perform better this winter.

Few farmers will take dung samples to see what parasites are actually present in cattle.

But the advantages of faecal sampling are that it will let you know the level of parasite burden present, as well as how effective your dosing programme (and product used) has been.

When the results are returned, discuss with your vet about which product will give the best kill rate.

Rather than just dosing cattle shortly after housing when convenient, it may be better to slightly delay dosing for a brief period.

This way, you will be targeting parasites at a mature stage in their life cycle, rather than a mix of immature and early mature parasites.

Some drenches will cover all stages of parasite development, others will not.

When choosing a worm or fluke drench, pay attention to the stage at which it targets parasites and follow the product guidelines. Pay particular attention to withdrawal periods.

Guessing the weight of an animal means there is a risk of under-dosing cattle. Therefore, animals will not be properly treated and performance may be reduced.

• 4. Dose to the heaviest animal

If you cannot weigh cattle, group animals according to size and weight.

Set the drenching gun to the heaviest animal in the group. This will ensure all animals are properly treated and reduce the risk of under-dosing.

Run cattle through a race so that a pour-on drench can be correctly applied to cattle along their back.

Where an oral drench is being used, use a head-locking gate so that you can safely administer the drench.

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