Tips for December

3 REASONS WHY IT MAKES SENSE TO HAVE GOOD SHADE

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Animals do best when their body temperature stays within their comfort zone. If not, they either use extra energy to shiver in the cold or pant in the heat. For most types of grazing livestock, the upper critical temperature is 25-26°C.

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Once an animal's body temperature gets too high, they use up energy trying to stay cool, at the expense of growth, milk production, and health.

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Under the minimum standards in the Animal Welfare Act, livestock must have a means of minimising the effects of heat stress. The easiest option is to provide good quality shaded areas.

3 JOBS TO DO IN DECEMBER Clean out water troughs

The cleaner the water and trough, the more water your livestock will drink. Livestock drink less if the water supply is dirty, which affects their growth and milk supply.

Ideally, you want the water and trough to be so clean, you'd be happy to drink out of it. Troughs should be in the shade to keep water cool, which makes it more palatable for stock, helps to lower their body temperature, and prevents algae growth. However, this may mean troughs need more cleaning due to falling leaf litter from trees.

Get faecal egg counts done

Accurately measuring parasite levels in cattle, sheep, and goats will help you provide the best drenching regime.

Parasites are one of the main causes of poor growth in young livestock. However, resistance to drench is now a huge problem, so accurate assessment and giving the correct dose (by weight) is vital to help keep drench products effective. Talk to your vet.

Get ready for January

When pastures dry off in February, it's the start of facial eczema (FE) season.

You can't treat the damage it causes to an animal's liver, but you can prevent it from occurring by supplementing stock with zinc. Treatment needs to start in early January.

Talk to your vet about the best method for protecting the three types of livestock most badly affected, sheep, cattle, and camelids. A zinc bolus (which lasts a month) is an easy way to treat sheep and cattle. Alpaca and llamas can be given zinc supplements in their feed.

WHY STOCK GET DOWN ON THEIR KNEES

Sheep and goats will graze on their knees to reduce the pressure on painful hooves. Causes of hoof pain include:

• foot scald, a bacterial infection between the toes;

• footrot, a bacterial infection in the hoof;

• hoof abscess;

• laminitis, inflammation of the hoof. All are painful and need immediate treatment. Scald can be treated with a foot bath of 10% zinc sulphate solution (keep adding zinc to water until no more dissolves). Talk to your vet for treatment advice for the other issues as they may require remedial trimming, pain relief, and antibiotics.