Do you sometimes get cases of mastitis that are frustrating to treat? The most difficult ones are those that seem to respond to the milking cow tubes, but the clots start to reappear just when the antibiotics have cleared and the milk should be safe to go back into the tank again. If you are starting to get cases like this the chances are you have a Streptococcal uberus infection established in the herd. The characteristics of this disease have changed over the years. Strept uberus was always considered to be an environmental organism that used contaminated bedding to get established in the teat canal. It has now been found that the organism is present in the rumen and on the skin of some cows and can spread out side on pastures during the summer.

It is now know that there are at least 250 different strains of strept uberus. The organism has been isolated from normal quarters with low cell counts, you will only be aware of the more aggressive strains that adversely affect cell counts and cause clots to appear in the milk. It has been found that 60% of the infections by this organism will last for less than 30 days; the others are far more persistent as they seem to be able to resist the actions of the inflammatory cells that try to eliminate them.

The best defense the cow has against this infection is the flushing effect of the teats being milked two or three times each day. The infection can get established when the cow is producing less milk and particularly in the first two weeks of the dry period if no dry cow tubes or teat sealants are used. It is though that the infection is able to spread during the summer as some cows always seem to settle in the same places in the fields and the infection is able to persist on the pasture in dry conditions.

What is the best way to combat Strept uberus? Because you do not normally know which type of mastitis you are treating the first line of defense is to use one antibiotic tube twice daily for three days.

Strept uberus does not normally become resistant to antibiotics it is more the case that the course of treatment has not been long enough or you have not treated all of the infected quarters. This is where injections come into their own, they are particularly good where there might be more than one quarter affected. Tylan has always been the most cost effective, because it is taken to the infected gland by the white cells in the blood it gets to the right place to deal with the infection. Synulox and Cephaguard are also licensed to treat mastitis in conjunction with their milking cow tubes. There is now a new injection called Manyzin that has been specifically formulated to treat Strept uberus mastitis. The injection is given daily for four days and the first indications are that it is effective as long as you are treating the right type of mastitis.

Strept uberus can be a difficult infection to get rid of completely. Because the more difficult infections seem to get started in the first two weeks of the dry period it is wise to focus on this time. Keep the bedding as clean as possible when the cows first go dry and use dry cow therapy or a teat sealant to keep the infection out of the udder.

DEFRA is keen to bring to your attention their guidelines for sustainable worm control strategies for sheep. It might have been better for this information to have been issued in the summer as it is the new ewes and the store sheep that come on in the autumn that are the most likely source of resistant worms, if you do not already have them. Some of their advice might work well on their experimental farms where faeces samples are monitored each month, but they are not much help for everybody else. The helpful bits are to make sure you are giving the right dose. Weight the heaviest and unless there is a large variation in size in the group treat them all with that dose. Check the dosing gun is giving the dose you intend and adjust accordingly if it is not working properly. Most wormers work more effectively if the sheep are hungry so you might be able to restrict their food before they are treated, but never do this for ewes that are close to lambing.

It is the worms that the animals pick up in the summer and autumn that are most likely to become resistant. If you dose the whole group then move them onto a clean pasture there is no competition for the few resistant worms that survive the drench and these will flourish on the new pasture. It is better if you can to return them to a contaminated field for a while so that any resistant worms will be in competition with the treatable ones on the pasture. Some shepherds treat only part of the flock, concentrating on the poorer ones and any that are scouring so that there will be some animals left to generate treatable worms that can live in the gut of your sheep.

In coming stock should all be wormed but bear in mind that they might carry resistant worms so keep them off your pastures or put them on a small paddock for the first forty eight hours to restrict the worm eggs that they can shed. These animals should be moved onto contaminated fields at first so that they can pick up a base level of worms to compete with any that they are still carrying in their gut. Remember adult sheep are able to develop immunity to the worm larvae that they pick up, things only go wrong when they take in too many parasites and their defense mechanisms are over whelmed.

Staying with worms there is an increased risk from fluke this year because of the wet conditions in the summer. Already there have been reported cases of acute fluke in sheep from South Wales. In our area the main problem develops later in the year when chronic fluke occurs. Fluke should be considered as a possible cause of ewes being thin and scouring especially if they were in the west of the country during the summer. At this time of the year you need a drench that will kill immature fluke. The dose will need to be repeated in January to break the life cycle of the parasite.

Scabivax the orf vaccine for sheep has been upgraded to include the wild strains of the organism and it now comes with a new applicator which should be more robust than the one that we are used to. Ewes do not transfer immunity to this disease to their lambs. If you can vaccinate the ewes effectively now they will shed any remaining lesions so that the new born lambs will not pick up the disease on their mouths.

We have been told that the definite start date is now November 22^nd. To find out more ring             0845 054 8888.

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