Liver Fluke in Sheep

It is not every day that I come across a lab report that says Liver Fluke so I thought I would tell you about it. This was a group of welsh lambs that we were investigating because of a problem with pasturella. The lambs seemed to be thriving apart from a small number that had caught the disease and did not survive. They had been putting on weight and there was no scouring. Liver Fluke have a complicated life cycle, because there is a snail involved we associate the disease with wet conditions and animals that scour and are in poor condition. At this time of the year the fluke are maturing in the liver of the host animal, they reveal their presence when they start to pass eggs, this might be the only way to detect them if there numbers are low. Fluke are not like other parasites as they do not produce eggs constantly. It is easy to miss the infection in a single animal and it is better to mix samples from six individuals in the hope that if there are any fluke present you will be able to find something. With this disease the number of eggs present is not very significant just one egg means you have a fluke problem.

Cattle as well

Somehow fluke manage to live in the bile ducts and damage the liver of the host animal, even a small number are detrimental to health and growth. They can affect cattle in exactly the same way, but will not cause so much damage because of the larger size of the liver in cattle. I would not have said that conditions were good for the development of fluke last year, although it was wet in the spring and that may have been enough to get the infestation established before the hot and dry conditions. This is a good time to tackle fluke before they start to contaminate your pastures and set the infestation off for the coming year.

Warm Weather

This month has been recorded as the second warmest January on record. The chances are that none of you will recall the warmest January as that was in 1916. In Minsterley some lawns have been cut already this year. The mild conditions can be a mixed blessing that has overwhelmed the defences you have either natural, because you rely only on stocking densities and ventilation, or enhanced because you have a vaccination regime to help control pneumonia. Most farms seem to have had some problems this year sometimes older animals have been involved because of the thickness of their winter coats.

Cool Working

Even the sensor that indicates the outside temperature in my car cannot cope with the mild conditions. It knows that it should be cold at this time of the year and keeps suggesting that the temperature should be anything from minus 10 to minus 40 degrees centigrade. At least it gets noticed when it is displaying such erratic behaviour.

Lame Sheep

In cold conditions there is little danger of foot rot spreading from lame sheep to others that are sound. The organism that is the cause of the infection can readily multiply in temperatures above 10 degrees centigrade and will spread in the lambing sheds and when sheep are housed during the winter. If you are careful it is usually possible to foot trim even heavily pregnant sheep and to spray their feet to stop the lameness spreading.

Fighting Mastitis

The mild winter has had an impact on dairy cows, there have been many

reports of high cell counts and cows with clinical mastitis. This has encouraged Pfizer to change their message about Orbeseal their dry cow teat sealant. Originally marketed for organic and low cell count cows to keep infections out for the whole of the dry period. It is far more useful after you have administered your dry cow tube to keep the antibiotic in and the new infections out. It works very well when used in this way. Extra care should be taken to ensure that the teat end is clean and dry before anything is inserted. It helps the dry cow therapy to work as the tube only has to deal with the infections present and not contend with any new ones getting in. Hopefully one day the dry cow tubes will all contain both an antibiotic and the Orbeseal plug so that the whole thing can be delivered from one tube.

Warfarin Poison

Just as there is a time of the year when we get to deal with sheep abortions now is a time when we see dogs and cats that are poisoned by rat bait. This has happened all too frequently in the past month or so. No matter how careful you are it is easy for your smaller companions to get access to the poisons used on the farm. Either they will take the bait directly as they are attracted by the smell or they will catch and consume dead or dying rats and mice. Most poisons that you have access to are warfarin based and stop the blood clotting. Some of the newer ones can go on working for several days after a single dose. If you think one of your animals has been poisoned there are tests that we can do to determine the seriousness of the problem. There are injections and tablets that we can use to treat affected animals and stop any symptoms developing. These treatments do no harm if in fact no bait has been taken. It is better to be safe than sorry as it is difficult to retrieve the situation once an animal has collapsed after taking the poison.

Timely Reminder

Over the years the incidence of organisms that can have serious consequences for human health such as Salmonella and pathogenic E Coli infections has diminished in farm animals. There is however still a real danger from lambing sheep and new born lambs if you happen to be pregnant. The problem is that ewes can have enzootic abortion and still have viable lambs. Lambs can carry the infection on there coats for some time when they are new born.

No matter how careful you are it is not possible to avoid the infection if you go into the lambing sheds or have contact with clothing that has been contaminated when ewes are handled. This is one risk that you can avoid. 

Every Bit Helps

I have had a number of Herd Health Plans to review this month. Often this is quite straight forwards as on most farms there will be few changes with the exception of the introduction of a few new drugs. If there are changes it will often affect only three or four pages in the whole plan. Usually the best way to do this is for you to write any changes and amendments on the sheets of the plan and return it to the surgery so that I can change the relevant pages and reprint just those rather than the whole plan again. I could not help noticing that there was little talk about climate change and global warming before we started to deal with Herd Health Plans and Pre Movement Testing. In a small way we must all do our bit to help the planet.

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