Facial eczema spores at dangerous levels
Taranaki could be facing a significant facial eczema season as spore counts soar to dangerous levels. The most recent monitoring carried out by vets shows 35 of 51 sites had counts above 20,000, the point at which animals are at risk.
Fifteen sites had counts above 100,000, with 310,000 recorded at Motunui, north of New Plymouth, and 240,000 at Lower Carrington Rd.
However, Taranaki Veterinary Centre chief executive Stephen Hopkinson said farmers should be wary of basing their decisions on the spore counts provided by vets.
‘‘Don’t listen to others, buy a microscope and take your own counts on your farm,’’ he told farmers at a recent seminar. ‘‘When spore counts are rising, start your zinc dosing. When spore counts are falling, stop your dosing.’’
Caused by toxic spores from a fungus which grows in the dead litter at the base of pasture in warm, moist conditions, facial eczema is estimated to cost the country $200 million annually.
There is no cure for the potentially fatal disease which can damage an animal’s liver and bile ducts, reduce fertility, and cause skin to redden, thicken and peel. FE also leads to a drop in milk production.
Preventative measures include dosing animals with zinc and spraying pastures with a fungicide. Farmers could monitor the effectiveness of zinc dosing with blood and water tests, Hopkinson said.
‘‘Keep monitoring spore counts, keep testing regularly and don’t stop zinc dosing too soon.’’
Breeding cows that are more tolerant to FE offers a long-term solution and was a logical step for North Taranaki farmers Gary and Melynda Phillips.
The couple run an organic dairy farm at Urenui, with 160 milking cows on a 60-hectare property. Until five or so years ago, they were badly affected by FE, with about one in eight of their cows developing the disease.
‘‘As a farmer, it’s very hard to deal with facial eczema in your animals. When one-third or onehalf of the herd gets facial eczema, it’s one of the most devastating things you ever can see,’’ Phillips said.
The Phillips have been using CRV Ambreed’s FE-tolerant genetics across their cows since 2012. Now, they have had three years of milking the progeny of sires with increased FE-tolerance, and also have heifers and calves coming through that have been bred from daughters of CRV’s FEtolerant bulls.
‘‘We no longer have to treat those cows – for our calves, we were drenching regularly before, but the last three years we haven’t had to do anything at all to the animals with increased tolerance.’’
Instead of up to half of his stock developing clinical eczema, the cows bred for FE-tolerance ‘‘didn’t get anything’’, much to the couple’s relief.
‘‘Three years ago was a bad year for eczema in the region, and a lot of surrounding farms lost stock, but we floated on through,’’ Phillips said.
New Zealand endured one of the worst facial eczema (FE) seasons in years in 2015 when spore counts ballooned in the North Island and parts of the South Island to the highest in a decade, and many herds had a large number of cows with clinical facial eczema.