Choosing the right time to apply preventative flystrike treatments

In the first instance, the need to treat sheep with preventative flystrike chemical products can be greatly reduced or removed by choosing the most suitable times to shear and crutch sheep, implementing worm and dag management, and very importantly, by breeding sheep that are resistant to flystrike.

If chemical treatments still become necessary, choose one of the following when deciding the most appropriate time to apply a preventative flystrike treatment.

  1. Early season flystrike preventative treatment

In areas where flies overwinter (are dormant) for an 8-week period or more during winter, apply a preventative treatment to the entire flock during this period of dormancy.

It is essential that no strikes (including the hidden ‘covert’ strikes) occur, as maggots from these will allow the fly population to build to levels high enough for strike to occur later in the season.

Fly-trapping or previous experience can be used to plan when treatment should be applied. Your treatment time should also allow you to comply with chemical withholding periods. The strategy involves applying a long-acting flystrike preventative to the whole flock before any fly activity in spring, followed where possible, with shearing or crutching when the chemical protection period is ending.

This prevents a fly population building up after a winter dormancy, so that strike is ultimately prevented later in the season by a lack of flies, rather than by making sheep less susceptible or applying another chemical treatment.

  1. Set treatment time at the start of the flystrike season

On properties where preventative treatments are required in more years than not, treatment can be applied at a set time every year.

This can be at a time just before significant amounts of flystrike is likely to occur, and can just be applied to at-risk mobs.

Treatment ideally occurs just before the number of strikes start to build up, but not before any strike occurs. The aim is to gain the maximum amount of protection for the chemical applied across the flystrike season.

If the chemical is applied too early, only a small amount of high-risk sheep are gaining the benefit in the first few weeks or so. But at the end of the season, when the fly numbers have built up and more strikes are liable to occur, the protection period of the chemical may have finished earlier than needed. As a result, more sheep may be struck at the end of the fly season, or more chemical will need to be applied than was necessary. This can end up with a higher cost and more sheep struck than if initial treatment was done a few weeks or so later (with the small number of sheep struck early being treated individually).

  1. Threshold method  

On properties where preventative treatments are not required in the majority of years, a threshold method, where treatment occurs once a set amount of strike is occurring, can be used to decide when to treat.

Also, on properties that use the method listed above—treatments applied at a set time each year before significant amounts of strike occur—monitoring prior to this time should still occur, and the threshold method should be applied in the occasional years when a wetter, warmer spring causes earlier strikes.

Once about 0.5% of sheep (1 sheep in 200) are struck in any one week it is almost always most economical to treat the whole mob with a preventative treatment, as the costs of labour for monitoring and treating individuals are very high, as are the costs from deaths and severely struck sheep.

However, you should treat earlier, at a lower strike threshold, if you or your staff cannot check frequently enough to detect and treat struck sheep before the strike is advanced.

In some cases the threshold may be reached, but has been brought about by an isolated rain event. If weather forecasts indicate that wet, warm and humid weather that presents a high flystrike risk is about to cease for a lengthy period, it is likely to be more economic to continue treating affected sheep individually over the next few days, rather than apply a mob treatment.

The other situation where individual treatment should continue is if you are close to shearing or the sale of animals and the various withholding periods for mob treatments will exceed the time until shearing/sale. In this case, if the flystrike risk is severe, consider bringing shearing forward or applying a product with a very short withholding period.

With susceptible sheep, monitoring should be carried out every second day during periods of heavy challenge, provided the sheep can be properly observed. Note that body strike is often more difficult to detect because sheep respond less in the early stages (compared with breech strike), so strike can become extensive before detection.

Where the country is steep or timbered or there is otherwise poor access to all sheep, or where lack of labour prevents frequent checking during these heavy-challenge periods, then preventative treatments will be required in advance of expected flystrike.

Flytraps are also a useful tool for determining the timing of preventative treatments.

Monitoring, done properly so that strikes are detected before they are advanced, is time-consuming, but essential on wellbeing and productivity grounds if sheep are at risk.

To identify affected sheep the mob must be held, such as against a fence, while you walk slowly among them or have the sheep drifted by you so that you can see both sides of all sheep—particularly the shoulder area) and the breech.

Come in and see our dedicated animal production team today for more information or to discuss a tailored plan for your enterprise.