On Tuesday I accompanied AbacusBio sheep and beef consultant Simon Glennie to a discussion group meeting that he facilitates near Lawrence, Otago. This is the third time that I have been involved in this particular discussion group, and once again it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.
The 1000ha (effective area) farm is divided into 400ha of cultivated land and 600ha of gullies. Current stocking levels on the farm comprises of 5,000 ewes, 1,800 hoggets, 70 cows and 190 calves; 120 of which have just come onto the farm as a share farming partnership to be grown on over the winter. One question the farmer posed to the group was 'should I be increasing my stocking rates'? On a year such as this where grass growth has been phenomenal (in an area that stocks relatively low due to summer drought), the obvious answer was 'yes'! The majority of the group suggested that the farm could be running more cows, as they can as such get lost in all the gullies on the farm. However; it was appreciated by the whole group that this year has been exceptional, and now is not the time to be making such decisions.
Another key area that the farmer has had to tackle this year is that of worms and wormer resistance. The young farming family came back to run the farm last year having been away for several years, and found this year that he had difficulty finishing lambs, particularly on young pasture where you would expect the lambs to be achieving high growth rates. Working closely with the local vet practise, the farmer wormed his lambs using the usual combination drench (white & clear) and did a Faecal Egg Count (FEC) 10 days later, to discover exceptionally high worm burden of 350 eggs/gram! The local vet was in attendance at the meeting, and she talked about how larval cultures were taken from FEC samples from lambs to discover which worm species were present and in what proportion. She showed the group the FEC reduction test results, which showed the percentage reduction of the individual worm species to different drench types, including Albendazole (white), Levamisole (clear), combination (white & clear) and Ivermectin. For all four drenches, Ostertagia worms were only reduced by 54% - 92%, meaning that each drench type failed, and ostertagia worms on the farm are resistant to all four drenches. Trichostrongylus, Cooperia, Oesoph/Chabertia and Nematodirus worms were also monitored, with Cooperia failing to be reduced by Ivermectin, and Nematodirus failing to be reduced by Albendazole and once again Ivermectin. These results highlight that the combination drench being used was not reducing Ostertagia - the worm that had been identified in the larval culture as being one of the biggest problems on the farm this year, probably due to the wet, moist conditions (usually a spring problem).
The results and future options on the farm led to some great discussion from the group, almost becoming heated at times! Recommendations from the vet were to use Switch or Zolvix or bionic capsules (Albendazole & Ivermectin combination delivered at a controlled rate over 100 days), with the farmers suggesting to either use the bionic capsules or a triple drench. The farmers in the group also highlighted the use of cows grazing lamb paddocks to ingest the worms, thus reducing the worm burden on the paddock before lamb finishing.
Unbelievable amount of grass at 1000ft in early May (equivalent to November in the UK)
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